•GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES': 


NARRATIVE   OF   PERSONAL    EXPERIENCE, 


TOGETHER  WITH 


RECENT   STATISTICAL   INFORMATION,    PRACTICAL   SUGGES- 
TIONS,  AND    A    COMPARISON   OF  THE   GERMAN, 
ENGLISH   AND    AMERICAN  SYSTEMS 
OF  HIGHER  EDUCATION. 


BY 


JAMES  MORGAN  HART. 


NEW  YORK: 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS, 

FOURTH  AVENUE  AND  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET. 
1874. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  eighteen  hundred  and 
seventy-four, 

BY  G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS, 
In  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


i 


( 


CONTENTS 


PART  I.  —  PERSONAL  NARRATIVE. 

CHAPTER.  PAGB. 

I.  First  Impressions  of  Gottingen,  I 

II.  Attacking  German,  19 

ill.  Matriculation  and  Lectures,  35 

IV.  Auf  der  Mensur,      -  65 

v.  Daylight  in  German,  84 

vi.  Idlesse,   --------  100 

vn.  Removal  to  Berlin  —  Umsatteln,                  -  -     104 

vin.  Wiesbaden  — The  Institutes,  122 

IX.  Anniversary  of  Battle  of  Leipsic  —  Commers,  -     137 

x.  The  Pandects,  149 

XI.  The  American  Colony — Birthdays,          -  -     158 

XII.  "Spurting,"    -------  172 

xin.  The  Final  Agony  of  Preparation,     -  192 

XIV.  Examination,  217 

I 
PART  II.  —  GENERAL  REMARKS. 

I.  What  is  a  University  ?-----  249 

ii.  Professors,      -------  264 

III.  Prtvatdocenten,  -------  276 

iv.  Students, 287 

v.  Discipline,          _______  313 

vi.  Comparison  with  English  Universities,  321 

vn.  Comparison  with  American  Colleges,       -  -    338 

vin.  Statistics  of  German  Universities,         -        -  356 

ix.  Practical  Hints 383 


TO 


GEORGE  HAVEN  PUTNAM, 


WHOSE    STEADFAST    WISH    HAS    BEEN    FATHER    TO   THE    AUTHOR'S 

THOUGHT,  THIS  BOOK  IS  INSCRIBED,  IN  FRIENDLY 

REMEMBRANCE   OF    THE 

GEORGIA  AUGUSTA,  1861-2. 


OF   THK 

UNIVERSITY 


UV) 

X 


PREFACE. 


Much  has  been  published  in  a  fugitive  form  upon 
the  fruitful  topic  of  university  life  in  Germany. 
One  man  has  taken  up  the  lecture-system,  another 
the  dueling,  a  third  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
instructors  or  of  the  students.  But  no  one,  I  be- 
lieve, has  told,  in  a  plain,  straightforward  narrative, 
how  he  himself  passed  his  time  at  the  university, 
what  he  studied,-  and  what  he  accomplished.  It 
seemed  to  me,  therefore,  that  I  might  do  the  cause 
of  education  in  America  some  service,  by  offering 
my  own  experience  as  a  sample  of  German  student- 
life  in  the  average.  Had  my  career  in  Gottingen 
been  an  extraordinary  one,  full  of  exciting  episodes, 
I  should  have  hesitated  to  make  it  public.  But 
precisely  because  it  was  so  uneventful,  so  like  the 
lives  of  my  associates,  I  have  deemed  it  fit  to  serve 
as  a  model  for  illustration,  not  imitation,  and  as  a 
basis  for  digression.  I  have  had  throughout  but  one 
aim:  to  communicate  facts  and  impressions  from 
which  the  reader  might  draw  his  own  inferences. 
Even  those  portions  of  the  Personal  Narrative 
which  assume  the  form  of  argument  are  intended  to 
remove  prejudices,  not  to  state  final  conclusions. 


PREFACE. 


The  General  Remarks  must  abide  the  verdict  as 
they  stand.  If  they  contain  aught  that  is  erroneous 
or  distorted,  the  present  is  not  the  place  for  correc- 
tion. I  can  only  say  that  I  have  striven  faithfully 
to  make  them  both  accurate  and  just.  Should  the 
reader  be  disposed  to  regard  my  estimate  of  the 
German  Universities  as  extravagant,  of  the  English 
as  too  unfavorable,  I  would  refer  him  to  an  oration 
delivered  by  von  Sybel,  in  1868,  upon  "  German  and 
Foreign  Universities."  It  forms  part  of  a  volume 
entitled  Vortr'dge  und  Aufsatze,  recently  published 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Allgemeiner  Verein  fur 
deutsche  Literatur.  The  renowned  historian,  who 
is  certainly  the  last  man  to  be  taxed  with  blind,  un- 
reasoning patriotism,  approaches  the  subject  from  a 
different  side,  yet  his  views  bear  such  close  resem- 
blance, both  in  form  and  in  spirit,  to  those  set  forth 
in  the  present  work,  that,  to  escape  the  imputation 
of  unfair  borrowing,  I  feel  bound  to  state  explicitly 
that  I  did  not  read  the  oration,  in  fact  was  not 
aware  of  its  existence,  until  my  own  manuscript  had 
passed  entirely  into  the  hands  of  the  printer.  After 
all,  there  can  be  but  one  opinion  as  to  the  merits  of 
the  several  university  systems  of  England,  France 
and  Germany. 

It  may  not  be  superfluous  to  add  that  the  present 
work  is  not  an  attack  upon  the  American  College. 
Although  holding  that  the  German  method  of 


PREFACE.  vii 


Higher  Education  is  far  above  our  own,  I  should 
be  very  sorry  to  see  that  method  adopted  at 
once,  and  in  the  lump.  Before  taking  decided 
steps  towards  the  expansion  'of  our  colleges  into 
quasi  universities,  it  will  be  advisable  for  us  to  con- 
sider thoroughly  what  a  university  really  is,  what  it 
accomplishes,  what  it  does  not  accomplish,  the  basis 
upon  which  it  rests,  the  relations  that  it  holds  to  the 
nation  at  large.  Until  we  have  formed  clear  and 
stable  conceptions  upon  all  these  points,  innova- 
tion, I  fear,  will  be  only  tinkering,  not  reform.  If  I 
have  succeeded  in  throwing  any  light  upon  the  sub- 
ject, my  wish  is  abundantly  realized. 

J.  M.  H. 
NEW  YORK,  August,  1874. 


GERMAN    UNIVERSITIES. 


CHAPTER    I. 
First  Impressions  of  Gottingen. 

ON  a  quiet  Saturday  afternoon  —  the  last,  if  I 
remember  aright  —  in  the  month  of  August,  1861, 
I  took  my  first  stroll  "  around  the  wall "  of  the  town  of 
Gottingen.  I  little  imagined  that  the  quaint  group  of 
rather  scraggy  looking  houses  then  unrolling  itself 
before  my  eyes  for  the  first  time  was  to  be  my  home 
for  three  long  years.  I  had  reached  Gottingen  late  the 
preceding  night,  having  traveled  through  by  the  day 
express  from  Basel,  Switzerland.  The  journey  had 
been,  of  course,  a  fatiguing  one.  It  was  midnight 
before  I  had  been  able  to  get  to  bed,  and  although  a 
prolonged  rest  had  done  something  in  the  way  of 
refreshing  me,  I  still  felt  disposed  to  take  life  easily. 
The  weather  was  suited  to  my  mood.  The  summer  of 
1 86 1  was  very  hot  and  dry  throughout  Europe,  caus- 
ing the  foliage  to  turn  and  fall  much  sooner  than  com- 
mon ;  on  that  particular  afternoon,  a  cool  breeze 
rustled  among  the  fast  withering  linden  tops,  and 
whispered  already  of  autumn  and  early  winter.  The 
sober  colors  of  the  houses  and  garden  walls,  the  gen- 


GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


eral  lameness  of  the  North  German  landscape  visible 
from  the  summit  of  the  wall,  the  comparative  insig- 
nificance of  the  surrounding  hills,  the  entire  atmos- 
phere of  -he  place  to  which  I  had  been  suddenly 
transplanted,  disposed  me  to  reflection.  My  sense  of 
the  picturesque  was  not  wounded  by  the  perception 
of  positive  ugliness,  nor  was  there  any  thing  in  the 
state  of  my  personal  affairs  to  call  forth  a  feeling  of 
sadness;  I  was  simply  in  a  mood  for  re  very.  My  first 
year  abroad  had  been  passed  in  Geneva,  on  the  bor- 
ders of  the  glorious  lake,  and  in  sight  of  the  still  more 
glgrious  Mont  Blanc  ;  I  had  just  finished  a  pedestrian 
tour  of  many  weeks  through  the  Upper  Alps,  had  seen 
all  the  beauties  of  Chamounix,  the  Bernese  Oberland 
and  Zerrnatt,  had  risked  my  neck  more  than  once  on 
glacier  and  arete.  Small  wonder,  then,  that  the  con- 
trast was  striking,  not  to  say  oppressive  ;  I  missed  all 
that  I  was  accustomed  to  feast  my  eyes  upon,  the  rich, 
warm  glow  of  Switzerland  in  its  summer  radi- 
ance, the  rocks,  and  eternal  snows,  and  blue  waters. 
I  was  to  adjust  my  faculties  of  perception  to  novel 
surroundings,  my  habits  of  thought  to  a  fresh  phase 
of  life.  The  very  walk  over  which  I  directed  my 
footsteps  was  something  wholly  strange  and  unex- 
pected, something  without  an  analogy  in  my  previous 
experience.  Gbttingen  was,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  a 
town  of  some  importance,  and  in  consequence 
strongly  fortified,  for  those  days,  by  an  earth  wall. 
This  wall,  erected  before  the  era  of  artillery,  is 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  GOTTINGEN.  3 

nothing  more  than  a  rampart  of  earth  completely 
encircling  the  town,  deflecting  here  and  there  from 
the  line  of  the  circle  because  of  inequalities  in  the 
ground,  but  without  any  of  those  salient  and  re- 
entering  angles  which  are  the  characteristic  features 
of  modern  artillery  walls.  It  is  useless  for  the  pur- 
poses of  defense.  The  Hanoverian  troops,  on  their 
retreat  through  from  Hanover  to  Langensalza,  in 
1866,  did  not  even  make  an  attempt  to  hold  the 
town,  although  it  lay  directly  in  the  line  of  the 
Prussian  advance  from  the  north,  and  although 
checking  that  advance  for  only  a  few  hours  might 
have  enabled  them  to  break  through  the  intercepting 
force  on  the  south.  The  wall  is  simply  a  promenade, 
about  twenty-five  or  thirty  feet  wide  at  the  top,  and 
averaging  fifteen  feet  in  height.  There  is  a  row  of 
lindens  on  each  side,  the  branches  of  which  over- 
arch so  as  to  form  a  shaded  avenue  in  summer ;  in 
winter,  the  wall,  being  high  and  exposed  to  the  rays 
of  the  sun  throughout  its  entire  length,  is  always  dry 
under  foot.  It  is  the  walk  by  eminence  of  Gottingen  ; 
when  one  man  asks  another  to  take  a  walk,  he  means, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  "around  the  wall,"  unless  he 
specifies  some  excursion  into  the  country.  The  wall 
has  been  broken  through  in  five  places  for  the 
entrance  of  the  country  roads.  The  quondam  ditch 
or  moat  running  around  the  wall  outside  is  entirely 
dry,  except  for  a  short  distance,  where  it  has  been 
enlarged  into  a  sort  of  pond,  and  is  used  for  vege- 


GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


table  and  fruit  gardens,  or  converted  into  a  public 
park.  The  houses  of  the  town  do  not  abut  against 
the  wall,  but  stand  back,  generallyat  some  distance; 
the  intervening  space  is  cut  up  into  house  gardens. 
The  time  occupied  in  making  the  circuit  of  the  wall 
is  forty-five  minutes  of  average  walking.  Go  when 
you  will,  morning,  afternoon,  or  evening,  l)y  rain  or 
by  shine,  in  the  nipping  frost  of  winter  or  the 
oppressive  heat  of  summer,  you  may  be  sure  of 
meeting  promenaders  out  for  a  stroll :  grave  profes- 
sors snatching  a  few  minutes  of  relaxation  from  their 
manuscripts,  and  looking  as  meek  and  helpless  out 
in  the  open  air  as  a  policeman  off  duty ;  schoolboys 
tumbling  one  another  down  the  sloping  grassy  sides 
of  the  wall ;  gay  Corps-studenten,  in  knots  of  three  or 
four,  gaudy  with  top-boots  and  Cerevis-mutzen  (beer 
caps),  each  carrying  the  inevitable  cane,  with  which 
he  keeps  himself  in  fencing  practice  by  cutting 
graceful  Lufthiebe  (blows  in  the  air)  at  an  imaginary 
antagonist;  maidens  of  the  intensest  German  type, 
plain  featured  but  erect  and  hearty,  stepping  briskly, 
and  looking  neither  to  right  nor  to  left ;  or,  perhaps, 
an  entire  family  mit  Kind  und  Kegel,  that  is  to  say,  "  the 
dog  and  I  and  father  and  mother,"  escaped  from  the 
Philistia  of  rickety  stairs  and  low-ceilinged  shops  to 
inhale  the  free  breath  of  nature. 

Although  thirteen  eventful  years  have  since  elapsed, 
I  have  still  a  vivid  impression  of  my  first  walk  around 
the  wall  There  were  very  few  strollers  out,  for  it  was 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  GOTTINGEN. 

the  middle  of  the  long  vacation  and  all  the  students 
and  many  of  the  professors  were  away.  My  compan- 
ion, the  landlady  to  whom  I  was  recommended  by  a 
kinsman  who  had  recently  left  Gottingen  to  return 
home,  chatted  away  volubly  in  the  purest  Hano- 
verian. Is  there  any  thing,  by  the  way,  so  exasper- 
ating as  one's  first  attempt  at  conversation  in  a  foreign 
language,  the  abortive,  frantic  efforts  to  convey  one's 
own  ideas,  the  utter  inability  to  follow  the  thread  .of 
the  simplest  narrative  ?  Is  there  any  thing  so  humili- 
ating as  the  consciousness  that,  although  your  com- 
panion is  evidently  using  the  shortest  phrases  and 
most  every-day  words,  in  fact  a  sort  of  baby  talk 
adapted  to  your  undeveloped  mental  capacities,  you, 
in  spite  of  all  your  book-learning  and  private  lessons 
at  so  much  an  hour,  cannot  catch  more  than  one  idea 
in  ten  ?  Yet,  tyro  as  I  was  in  German  conversation,  I 
detected  a  difference  ;  my  teacher  in  Geneva  had  been 
a  Saxon,  and  he  had  certainly  not  spoken  as  my  land- 
lady was  then  speaking,  while  the  contrast  to  the  jargon 
of  Switzerland,  and  to  the  broad  sing-song  of  the  Rhine 
region  through  which  I  had  hurried  the  day  previous, 
was  still  more  evident.  The  vowels  were  clear  and 
full,  the  Umlauts  pure,  the  consonants  sharp  ;  there 
was  no  apocope  of  letters  and  syllables,  no  running 
of  words  together  ;  the.  general  intonation  of  the  voice 
was  graciously  modulated.  I  had  no  difficulty  in  dis- 
tinguishing each  word  as  it  was  uttered,  although  I 
might  not  have  the  faintest  conception  of  its  meaning. 


GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


I  had  gathered  from  various  sources,  that  Hanover 
was  the  province  in  which  to  begin  one's  study  of  Ger- 
man to  the  best  advantage.  My  very  first  day's  experi- 
ence only  corroborated  the  belief,  which  has  not  been 
shaken  by  years  of  subsequent  study  and  travel.  The 
cultivated  classes  throughout  Germany  speak  sub-' 
stantially  the  same  language.  Even  in  Vienna,  the 
professors  and  men  of  letters  do  not  differ  much, 
either  in  their  choice  of  words  or  in  their  accent,  from 
their  colleagues  in  Berlin  or  in  Heidelberg.  Still  the 
difference  exists,  and  is  plainly  perceptible  to  the 
trained  ear.  But  among  the  uncultivated  classes,  the 
variations  of  speech  and  accent  amount  to  dialects. 
Along  the  Rhine,  in  Suabia,  Bavaria,  and  Austria,  the 
folk  speaks  in  a  language  that  is  almost  unintelligible 
when  first  heard.  The  grounds  upon  which  I  base  my 
preference  for  Hanover  are  briefly  these.  In  the  first 
place,  the  Hanoverian  pronunciation  conforms  more 
closely  than  any  other  to  the  printed  form  of  the  word, 
it  is  more  precise,  it  does  not  confound  e.g.,  J?euerwith 
Feier,  Worter  with  Warter,  Thur  with  Thier.  I  do 
not  pretend,  of  course,  to  settle  in  this  off-hand  way 
the  competing  claims  of  the  various  German  dialects; 
there  are  grave  reasons  why  we  may,  perhaps,  regard 
the  Saxon  pronunciation  as  historically  the  most  cor- 
rect. This  is  a  matter  for  the  professed  philologist ; 
but  the  foreigner,  who  has  to  grope  his  way  the  best 
he  can,  who  has  to  train  both  ear  and  throat  to  strange 
sounds,  and  to  derive  the  greater  part  of  his  knowl- 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  GOTTINGEN.  7 

edge  from  books,  will  find  it  a  decided  advantage 
to  begin  his  studies  among  a  population  that,  more 
than  any  other,  speaks  as  it  writes  and  writes  as  it 
speaks. 

In  the  next  place,  the  Hanoverians  generally  use 
good  grammar.  There  are,  of  course,  uneducated 
persons  who  make  an  occasional  slip;  but  in  the 
main,  the  foreigner  may  take  for  granted  that  what- 
ever he  hears  he  can  repeat  with  safety.  We,  of  the 
English-speaking  race,  are  apt  to  overlook  the  im- 
portance of  this  point;  our  own  language  is  so  bare 
of  grammatical  inflections,  that  we  have  really  lost 
an  adequate  sense  of  their  significance.  A  few  very 
gross  vulgarisms  aside,  such  as  went  for  gone,  done  for 
did,  there  is  almost  no  bad  grammar  in  English,  how- 
ever much  we  may  be  plagued  with  bad  style.  But 
in  German,  the  importance  of  a  correct  knowledge  of 
words  cases,  government  of  prepositions,  agreement 
of  adjective  and  noun,  is  ten  times  as  great.  To  the 
foreigner  in  Germany,  then,  who  has  to  learn  every 
thing  at  once,  as  it  were,  to  struggle  with  dictionary 
and  grammar,  it  makes  a  material  difference  whether 
or  not  he  resides  in  a  community  whose  utterances  he 
may  look  upon,  for  practical  purposes,  as  infallible, 
whether  or  not  he  has  to  unlearn  in  his  room  what  he 
has  learned  on  the  street.  It  is  a  mistake  to  imagine 
that  one's  dealings  in  a  foreign  country  are  exclu- 
sively with  the  cultivated  classes;  one  comes  in  con- 
tact with  shopkeepers,  waiters,  servants  of  all  kinds, 


GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

— 

and  if  their  communications  are  corrupt,  one's  own 
manners  will  suffer.  In  Berlin,  for  instance,  one 
often  hears  some  such  expression  as,  Ich  habe  Ihnen  * 
nicht  gesehen.  The  advanced  student  of  German  will 
not  be  misled  by  such  a  gross  blunder;  but  the  tyro, 
who  has  not  yet  fully  unraveled  the  perplexities  of 
the  dative  and  accusative  cases,  could  scarcely  escape 
bewilderment.  In  learning  a  language,  one  has  need 
of  every  help ;  it  is  no  small  comfort,  then,  to  con- 
verse with  even  a  servant  girl  or  a  boot-black  and 
feel  a  reasonable  degree  of  assurance  that  one's 
grammar  is  not  becoming  infected  at  every  other 
sentence.  Taken  all  in  all,  there  is  no  section  of 
Germany  where  the  foreigner  can  converse  so  safely 
with  any  and  every  body  as  he  can  in  the  kingdom 
(now  province)  of  Hanover. 

Mr.  Bristed,*  in  his  introductory  chapter,  entitled 
"  First  Impressions  of  Cambridge,"  has  suggested 
rather  than  described  the  general  features  of  an 
English  university  town.  The  reader  can  construct 
from  them  a  tolerably  clear  picture  of  what  Cam- 
bridge or  Oxford  must  be,  the  grandiose  character  of 
its  architecture,  the  half-monkish  official  garb  of  the 
students  and  dons,  the  pervading  tone  of  scholas- 
ticism. Both  Cambridge  and  Oxford  are  simply  con- 
geries or  clusters  of  colleges,  each  college  doing  about 
the  same  work;  neither  is  a  university  in  the  true 

sense  of  the  term.     But  reserving  the  discussion  of 

______  __________________________________________^_____. 

*  Five  Years  in  an  English  University. 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  GOTTINGEN.  9 

this  point  for  another  place,  I  shall  deal  for  the  pres- 
ent exclusively  with  externals,  with  buildings,  if  the 
reader  prefer  this  expression. 

No  two  institutions  of  the  same  species  can  be 
imagined  more  diverse  than  an  English  and  a  Ger- 
man university.  Were  I  to  push  the  antithesis  to  its 
extreme  limits,  I  might  say  that  the  former  was  all 
body,  all  bricks  and  mortar ;  the  latter,  no  body  and 
all  soul.  The  Englishman  or  American  who  visits  a ; 
German  university  town  for  the  first  time  will 
scarcely  realize  the  fact  that  it  is  the  seat  of  a  great 
institution  of  learning.  He  can  see  nothing;  there  is 
no  visible  sign  of  the  university,  no  chapel,  no  huge 
buildings,  whether  we  call  them  dormitories  or  quad- 
rangles, no  campus.  There  is  no  rallying  place  of 
professors  and  students,  where  he  can  stand  and, 
letting  his  eye  sweep  around  on  every  side,  say: 
This  is  the  university.  He  may  even  pass  his  entire 
life  in  the  town  and  never  once  see  the  body  of  pro- 
fessors and  students  assembled  in  one  place. 

I  dwell  upon  this  distinction,  because  it  is  an 
important  one.  The  reader  who  wishes  to  get  a  just 
notion  of  the  character  of  a  German  university  must 
dismiss  from  his  mind  all  prejudices,  aLny  expectation 
of  finding  what  his  early  associations  may  have  led 
him  to  consider  as  the  conspicuous  features  in  a  seat 
of  learning.  As  I  walked  around  the  wall  of  Got- 
tingen  for  the  first  time,  the  predominating  thought  in 
my  mind  was :  Where  is  the  university  ?  I  could  find 


10  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

no  tangible  evidences  of  its  existence,  its  reality. 
Putting  what-  questions  I  could  in  my  imperfect 
German,  and  paying  strict  attention  to  the  answers, 
I  could  make  out  that  the  dome  to  the  left,  near  the 
starting-place  of  our  walk,  by  the  Geismar  Gate,  was 
an  observatory;  considerably  farther  on,  in  close 
proximity  to  the  railway  station,  was  a  large  building 
bearing  the  inscription  "Theatrum  Anatomicum," 
evidently  the  medical  school ;  still  further  on,  in  the 
moat  by  the  side  of  the  wall,  was  an  arrangement  of 
glass-houses,  that  was  no  less  evidently  a  botanical 
garden.  This  was  all  of  the  university  that  I  could 
detect  in  my  first  tour  of  the  great  Gottingen 
promenade. 

Having  come  to  Germany  without  any  definite 
plan  beyond  that  of  learning  the  language  and  famil- 
iarizing myself  somewhat  with  the  literature,  I  could 
afford  to  take  things  as  I  found  them  and  await 
future  explanations.  The  Americans  at  that  time 
studying  at  Gottingen  were  all  absent  on  one  or 
another  summer  excursion,  so  that  I  was  a  stranger 
in  a  strange  land.  What  with  puzzling  over  German 
Grammar  and  taking  short  walks  eyery  afternoon 
in  the  county,  time  did  not  hang  too  heavy  on  my 
hands.  Fortunately,  in  about  a  week  an  Englishman 
residing  in  the  same  house  returned  unexpectedly, 
having  cut  short  his  trip.  Those  who  have  never 
tried  the  experiment  of  settling  in  a  foreign  country 
and  among  utter  strangers,  with  the  most  imperfect 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  GOTTINGEN.  1 1 

knowledge  of  the  language  and  the  ways  of  the 
people,  can  scarcely  appreciate  the  discomforts  of  the 
first  few  days.  My  landlady  was  the  most  obliging  and 
attentive  one  in  the  world,  and  had  had  more  than  one 
American  in  her  friendly  care.  Still,  she  knew  no  Eng- 
lish and  I  knew  very  little  German,  so  that  life  for  the 
first  week  was  a  half-amusing,  half-provoking  comedy 

of  errors.    The  return  of  Mr.  E ,  then,  was  for  me 

a  bit  of  good  luck;  I  had  at  last  some  one  with 
whom  to  converse  freely  and  from  whom  to  get  need- 
ful information.  Having  already  passed  four  or  five 
semesters  in  the  place,  he  was  thoroughly  familiar 
with  shops,  and  streets,  and  university  life,  and  had 
leisure  to  pilot  me  around  and  tell  me  what  to  do. 
The  university  lectures,  I  learned,  would  not  be 
resumed  until  the  third  week  in  October,  so  that  I 
had  fully  a  month  and  a  half  in  which  to  get  up  my 
German.  We  worked  together  over  the  catalogue  of 
lectures  for  the  coming  term,  in  the  attempt  to  pick 
out  one  or  more  that  it  might  be  worth  my  while  to 
attempt  to  hear.  I  learned  a  good  many  peculiari- 
ties of  university  language ;  for  instance,  that  a  pro- 
fessor never  "  instructs  "  or  "  lectures,"  he  "  reads ;  " 
the  students  do  not  "  study,"  they  "  hear."  I  learned 
also  that  instruction  in  a  German  university  runs 
in  sharply  defined  channels.  E was  study- 
ing chemistry,  consequently  he  could  give  me  no 
information  about  lectures  or  professors  in  other 
departments ;  he  did  not  even  know  half  of  them  by 


12  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 



name,  and  could  not  venture  an  opinion  as  to  their 
respective  merits.  All  that  he  could  say  was,  "  Wait 
until  H—  -  gets  back.  He's  a  Philolog,  and  can 
perhaps  tell  you  what  you  wish  to  know." 

At    all   events,  E •  's   guidance   enabled   me   to 

familiarize  myself  with  the  general  aspects  of  the 
town  and  the  location  of  the  university  buildings. 
Gottingen  may  serve  as  the  type  of  the  German 
university  town.  The  population  is  about  12,000., 
The  streets  are  neither  very  straight  ^nor  very 
/9/O  crooked,  and  no  one  runs  directly  through  the 
town;  in  general,  they  are  tolerably  wide.  The 
houses  are  plain  and  poorly  built.  The  frame  work 
is  of  wood,  the  outer  walls  being  filled  in  with  a  sort 
of  mud  that  is  mixed  with  a  good  deal  of  straw  to 
give  it  consistency ;  after  the  mud  has  dried,  it  is 
painted.  For  a  cheap  mode  of  building,  it  is  much 
better  than  might  be  supposed.  The  number  of 
^stone  and  brick  buildings  is  small.  The  handsomest 
building  in  town  is  (or  was  in  my  day)  the  Labora- 
tory, built  under  the  supervision  of  Wbhler  himself, 
since  deceased.  It  is  a  large  structure,  built  of 
light  blue  stone,  and  perfectly  fire-proof.  The  Aula 
is  the  centre  of  the  university,  so  far  as  it  can  be 
said  to  have  a  centre.  It  is  a  small  but  not  inelegant 
looking  building,  somewhat  after  the  Grecian  order, 
standing  on  a  small  open  place  or  square  not  far 
from  the  centre  of  the  town.  In  this  Aula  new 
students  are  matriculated  and  the  University  Court 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  GOTTINGEN.  13 

holds  its  sessions ;  it  also  contains  the  general  offices 
of  the  university,  such  as  the  treasurer's,  and,  last 
but  not  least,  the  Career,  where  unruly  students  are 
confined  for  a  fortnight  or  less,  for  minor  offenses; 
graver  ones  are  punished  by  relegation  or  by  expul-^ 
sion. 

Lectures  on  chemistry  were  delivered  in  the  labo- 
ratory; those  on  medicine,  in  the  Theatrum  Anatomi- 
cum ;  all  the  others,  including  theology,  law  and 
philosophy,  in  the  university  sense  of  that  term,  were 
held  in  the  so-called  Collegien-haus,  a  short  row  of 
buildings  that  had  once  been  private  dwellings,  but 
had  been  converted  into  lecture  rooms. 

In  1865  the  new  Collegien-haus  was  opened,  a  large 
and  elegant  building  constructed  for  the  especial 
purpose,  just  out  of  the  Wende  Gate,  near  the  Botani- 
cal Garden.  By  the  side  of  the  old  Collegien-haus, 
separated  from  it  by  an  arched  way,  stands  the  cele- 
brated university  library,  one  of  the  best  in  Europe ; 
the  building  is  nothing  more  than  an  old  church, 
adapted  to  secular  uses  and  enlarged  here  and  there 
by  irregular  extensions  or  wings.  In  the  arched 
way  between  the  lecture  rooms  and  the  library 
stood  the  Schwarzes  Brett  (black  board),  a  long  board 
painted  black  and  having  a  wire  screen  in  front.  On 
this  board  were  posted  all  announcements  relating  to 
university  instruction,  announcements  of  lectures  or 
changes  in  lectures,  of  degrees  conferred  upon  stu- 
dents, and  the  like. 


14  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Besides  the  buildings  that  I  have  described,  there 
are  other,  minor  ones  sea  ttered  over  the  town ;  the 
headquarters  of  the  agricultural  department  are  even 
located  about  two  miles  out  of  town,  on  a  model  farm 
near  the  village  of  Wende. 

It  is  needless  to  go  deeper  into  details;  I  have 
said  already  enough  to  make  it  clear  to  the  reader  that 
a  German  university,  as  far  as  buildings  and  out- 
ward show  are  concerned,  is  made  up  of  disjecta  mem- 
bra. There  is  a  bond  of  vital  union,  a  very  strong 
one  too,  but  it  is  wholly  spiritual ;  it  does  not  appeal 
to  the  senses.  In  architectural  display,  I  am  confi- 
dent that  the  most  unimportant  college  at  Oxford  or 
Cambridge  will  surpass  any  university  in  Germany. 

The  new  life  that  I  was  leading  dawned  upon  me 
very  pleasantly.  The  weather  continued  fine  for 

many  weeks,  permitting  E and  myself  to  take  long 

walks  every  afternoon.  Sometimes  our  landlady, 

Frau  H- ,  accompanied  us ;  sometimes,  even,  she 

made  up  a  small  party  of  her  friends  for  our  benefit. 
The  Germans  are  very  fond  of  walking,  but  look  upon 
it  much  more  sensibly  than  the  English  do ;  they 
regard  it  as  a  pleasure,  a  relaxation,  not  as  so  many 
miles  to  be  covered,  so  many  ditches  to  be  leaped  in 
an  hour.  Old  and  young,  men  and  women,  go  out 
for  a  stroll  whenever  they  can  find  the  time  and  favor- 
able weather.  The  roads  in  Germany  are  good,  and 
the  by-paths  easy  to  follow.  Around  every  town  in 
the  land,  at  distances  varying  from  one  mile  to  two  or 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  GOTTINGEN.  15 

three,  lie  scattered  here  and  there  ten  or  a  dozen  vil- 
lages or  gardens  where  the  pedestrian  can  sit  down  to 
rest  and  refresh  himself  with  beer  or  coffee ;  in  most 
of  these  places  a  warm  supper  even  can  be  had.  On 
any  fine  day  in  spring,  summer,  or  autumn,  one  can 
see  an  entire  German  family,  parents,  grandparents 
perhaps,  children,  all  wending  their  way  to  some 
Garten  or  Muhle,  where  they  will  meet  other  like- 
minded  families  and  pass  the  afternoon  and  part  of 
the  evening  in  recreation ;  the  men  roll  Kegel  (nine- 
pins ),  the  women  knit  and  gossip  over  their  coffee, 
the  children  roam  through  the  fields.  Enjoyment  is 
simple  and  unrestrained ;  there  are  no  "  roughs  "  in 
Germany.  Now  and  then  one  reads  in  the  newspa- 
pers of  a  murder  or  a  robbery  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Berlin  or  Vienna ;  but  such  deeds  are  perpetrated  only 
in  very  obscure,  degraded  localities.  Such  a  thing  as 
the  breaking  up  of  a  pleasure  party  by  wanton,  mali- 
cious "  roughs"  is  an  unheard-of  occurrence. 

The  scenery  around  Gottingen  is  not  grand  nor  very 
beautiful,  but  it  is  pleasant.  At  first  I  thought  it  tame 
enough,  coming  as  I  did  direct  from  the  Alps.  This 
feeling  of  disappointment,  however,  soon  wore  away, 
and  I  began  to  conceive  a  decided  liking  for  my  new 
home.  Gottingen  lies  in  a  broad,  fertile  valley ;  the 
hill  to  the  east,  called  the  Rhons  or  the  Kehr  ( both 
proper  names  of  men  who  formerly  lived  there), 
stands  quite  near  the  town,  and  slopes  away  to  a 
height  of  three  or  four  hundred  feet ;  the  hill  to  the 


1 6  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

west,  crossed  in  zig-zag  by  the  railroad  from  Cassel, 
is  much  farther  away  and  much  higher.  The  little  river 
Leine,  a  narrow,  muddy  stream,  that  would  be  called  in 
America  a  creek,  flows  through  the  middle  of  the  town, 
although  it  is  so  covered  up  by  mills  and  other  buildings 
that  it  is  visible  only  in  a  few  places. 

The  valley  is  uncommonly  level,  and,  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  town,  rather  marshy.  A  small  branch 
of  the  Leine  flows  around  the  town  in  a  detour.  The 
water  in  this  branch  is  a  few  feet  higher  than  the 
land,  and  is  allowed  to  overflow  in  winter,  partly  to 
fertilize  the  soil,  partly  to  give  the  Gottingese  an 
opportunity  for  skating.  The  land  in  the  district  of 
Gottingen  is  both  Grossgutsbesitz  and  Kleingut,  that  is  to 
say,  there  are  both  large  estates  and  small  peasant-hold- 
ings. The  peasantry,  Bauern,  as  a  class,  are  industrious 
and  wealthy,  although  by  no  means  as  wealthy  as  their 
famous  brethren  of  Sachsen-Altenburg.  In  the  imme- 
diate vicinity  of  the  town,  the  land  is  given  up  to  grass ; 
farther  put,  there  are  immense  fields  of  wheat,  buckwheat, 
rye  and  barley.  One  feature  of  the  German  method  of 
cultivation  impressed  me  as  being  not  only  practical  but 
as  enhancing  materially  the  beauty  of  the  landscape ;  the 
same  feature  prevails  also  in  France.  I  mean  the  total 
absence  of  fences,  those  wretched  snake-like  black  trails 
that  disfigure  the  face  of  the  country  in  America.  I 
have  walked  for  miles  in  every  direction  from  Gottingen, 
over  meadows,  through  fields  of  wheat  and  rye,  but  I 
cannot  remember  once  encountering  a  fence.  Some  of 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  GOTTINGEN.  17 

the  gardens  just  outside  of  the  town  are  surrounded  by 
high  walls ;  but  after  he  has  left  them  behind  him,  the 
pedestrian  finds  that  he  has  an  unobstructed  sweep  of 
vision.  The  boundary  lines  of  farms  and  estates'  are 
marked  at  the  angles  by  stones  sunk  in  the  ground. 
In  this  way  the  Germans  not  only  save  themselves  the 
trouble  and  expense  of  building  fences,  but  they  preserve 
the  natural  aspect  of  the  terrain.  Cattle,  sheep  and 
horses,  when  put  out  to  graze,  are  not  allowed  to  roam  at 
will  but  are  kept  in  herds  by  men  and  dogs,  or  else 
enclosed  by  a  slight  temporary  fence.  Not  even  along 
the  great  royal  chaussee  that  follows  the  valley  of  the 
Leine  from  Witzenhausen  through  Gottingen  and  Nord- 
heim  to  the  city  of  Hanover,  is  there  any  thing  to  sepa- 
rate the  road  from  the  fields ;  only  a  small  shallow  ditch 
on  each  side,  and  two  rows  of  monotonous  Lombardy 
poplars  blending  into  one  in  the  dim  distance. 

The  valley  of  the  Leine  has  always  been  a  thorough- 
fare between  the  region  of  the  Weser  and  the  region  of 
central  Germany,  Franconia  and  Thuringia.  During  the 
Middle  Ages,  when  the  "  fist-law  "  was  in  force,  numerous 
castles  raised  their  frowning  battlements  along  the  hills 
that  line  the  valley,  principally  along  the  eastern  ridge. 
The  remains  of  two  of  these  knightly  burgs,  or  robber 
strongholds,  still  exist  in  the  neighborhood  of  Gottingen, 
namely  the  Gleichen  and  the  Plesse.  The  former  is 
five  or  six  miles  to  the  south  of  the  town ;  the  latter, 
by  far  the  more  frequented  of  the  two,  is  about  four 
miles  in  the  opposite  direction,  near  the  village  of  Wende. 


1 8  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

The  ruins  are  on  a  detached  spur  of  the  eastern  ridge, 
and  overlook  the  plain  from  an  elevation  of  several  hun- 
dred feet.  The  path  leads  up  from  the  small  concert 
garden  at  Mariae  Spring,  through  a  charming  grove  of 
beeches  and  maples.  The  outer  walls  of  the  castle  are, 
in  most  places,  still  standing,  and  the  general  ground- 
plan  can  be  easily  recognized.  The  old  tower  is  almost 
intact.  It  was  roofed-in  with  a  stained-glass  roof  in  1862, 
if  I  remember  rightly.  The  platform  of  the  castle  is  a 
cosy  retreat  on  a  warm  summer  afternoon,  and  affords 
an  extensive  view  of  the  smiling  plains  below  and  the 
long,  high  western  ridge  directly  opposite. 


- 


CHAPTER   II. 
Attacking  German. 

WAS  now  ready  for  the  winter's  work,  namely,  the 
*-  formal  investment  of  that  Gibraltar  ycleped  the 
German  language.  On  reaching  Gottingen,  I  knew  just 
enough  of  German  to  realize  that  I  knew  practically 
nothing.  The  three  months'  instruction,  exclusively 
book-work,  that  I  had  received  at  Geneva  was  scattered 
to  the  winds  during  a  long  pedestrian  tour  through  the 
Alps;  scarcely  any  thing  remained  of  the  lessons  but 
the  uncertain  remembrance  of  a  few  paradigms  of  nouns 
and  verbs.  The  spirit  of  the  language  was  wholly 
unknown  to  me  ;  I  was  neither  better  nor  worse  off  than 
the  average  American  graduate  who  has  been  passed 
in  Otto,  Woodbury  or  Comfort,  and  has  read  an  act  or 
two  of  Wilhelm  Tell. 

As  the  opening  of  the  fall  term  was  still  six  or  seven 
weeks  off,  I  had  a  fair  opportunity  of  trying  what  I  could 
do  in  the  way  of  preparation  for  understanding  lectures. 
But  before  beginning  the  account,  it  will  be  advisable  to 
say  a  few  words  about  my  novel  abode. 

Continuing  the  plan  which  had  worked  so  well  in  Gen- 
eva, I  determined  to  live,  for  the  first  few  months  at  least, 
in  a  family  where  I  should  have  the  privilege  of  speaking 


20  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

and  hearing  German  continually.      The  landlady,  Frau 

H ,  was  the  only  one  who  pretended  to  give  what  we 

call  "boarding."  German  students,  be  it  observed,  never 
board ;  each  man  lives  by  himself,  in  his  own  room,  takes 
his  breakfast,  and  generally  his  supper,  there,  but  dines 
at  the  table  d'hote  o£  a  hotel  or  restaurant.  The  life, 
then,  that  I  led  during  my  first  winter  in  Gottingen 
was  not  strictly  that  of  a  German  student.  My  breakfast, 
merely  rolls  and  coffee,  was  brought  to  my  room  by  the 
servant ;  dinner  and  supper,  we,  /.  e.  myself  and  the  other 
boarders,  two  Americans  and  an  Englishman,  had  in 
the  dining-room  with  our  landlady.  We  paid  so  much 
a  month  for  "  full  board,"  while  the  German  student  hires 
his  room  by  the  semester,  and  keeps  a  book-account  for 
whatever  he  orders,  paying  up  at  the  end  of  every  week 
or  month. 

Yet  the  rooms  that  we  had  were  like  those  of  every 

other  student.     The  one  occupied  by  E being  rather 

more  typical  than  my  own,  I  shall  describe  it  in  prefer- 
ence. It  was  a  large  square  room,  the  two  front  windows 
facing  on  the  street,  the  side  window  overlooking  the 
wall  as  it  sloped  down  to  make  an  entrance  for  the  Geis- 
mar  road  into  the  town.  Off  to  one  side  was  the  sleep- 
ing-room, one  half  the  size  of  the  study.  Neither  room 
was  carpeted.  In  one  corner  of  the  room,  near  the  door, 
stood  the  inevitable  Of  en,  a  big  stove  of  porcelain  reach- 
ing almost  to  the  ceiling.  The  German  theory  of  heating 
is  to  have  a  large  stove  of  massive  porcelain,  in  which 
your  servant  makes  a  rousing  fire  in  the  morning ;  after 


ATTACKING  GERMAN.  21 

the  blaze  has  died  out,  and  nothing  is  left  but  the  glim- 
mering coals,  the  door  and  the  clapper  are  made  fast. 
The  stove  is  then  supposed  to  hold  its  heat  and  maintain 
a  uniform  temperature  in  the  room.  The  fuel  used  is 
generally  wood  ;  even  in  Leipsic  and  Berlin,  where  wood 
is  dear  and  coal  comparatively  cheap,  the  former  is  pre- 
ferred for  room  and  parlor  stoves.  This  plan  of  heating  | 
has  its  advantages  and  its  drawbacks.  It  is  rather  eco- 
nomical, and  it  secures  a  uniform  temperature  for  a 
certain  time ;  besides  saving  one  the  trouble  of  raking 
and  adding  fresh  fuel  every  few  hours,  it  dispenses  with 
dust  and  ashes.  The  disadvantages  are  that  the  air  in 
the  room  is  not  properly  renewed,  and  also  that  the  stove 
cools  down  so  gradually  that,  before  the  inmate  is  aware, 
the  temperature  has  dropped  several  degrees.  On  the 
whole,  I  prefer  the  American  base-burner. 

Another  indispensable  article  of  furniture  in  a  stu- 
dent's room  is  the  Secretar,  or  secretary.  This  consists 
of  three  parts:  the  lower,  a  set  of  drawers;  in  the 
middle,  a  sort  of  door  that  can  be  let  down,  disclosing  a 
fascinating  arrangement  of  pigeon-holes  and  very  small 
drawers  for  storing  away  letters  and  papers  and  "  traps  " 
generally  ;  up  above,  a  cupboard. 

The  ceiling   of  E 's   room   was   scored   in   every 

direction.  These  marks,  I  was  informed,  were  the  scars 
of  old  sabre-wounds,  that  had  been  left  there  .by  the 
former  inmate.  As  the  ceiling  was  rather  low,  a  tall  man 
in  reaching  out  for  Hochquart  would  be  apt  to  graze  the 
top  of  the  room  with  the  point  of  his  sabre  or  his  Schla- 


22  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

ger.  The  former  inmate,  judged  by  the  number  of 
tokens  of  his  existence  that  he  had  left,  must  have  kept 
himself  and  his  visitors  in  pretty  thorough  practice. 
Against  the  wall,  in  the  corner  opposite  the  stove,  hung 
a  pair  of  the  instruments  of  destruction,  with  masks 
and  gloves.  In  a  third  corner  was  the  equally  inevi- 
table sofa,  upon  which  the  student  lies  off  to  enjoy 
his  after-dinner  pipe  and  coffee.  Over  the  sofa  hung 
a  picture  of  the  Brunswick  Corps,  representing,  in  litho- 
graph, the  members  of  the  corps  holding  their  annual 
Commers  (celebration)  at  some  place  in  the  country, 
perhaps  Mariae  Spring.  Some  are  sitting  around  a 
table,  others  are  grouped  picturesquely  on  the  grass,  oth- 
ers again  are  standing;  but  every  one  has  a  long  pipe  in 
one  hand,  and  a  Deckel-schoppen  (large  beer-glass  with  a 

cover)  in  the  other.     E was  not  a  member  of  the 

corps,  but  he  had  been  for  some  time  a  Conkneipant,  i.  e., 
one  who  attends  the  weekly  meetings  when  he  feels  dis- 
posed, and  joins  in  the  revelry ;  the  picture,  then,  was  a 
souvenir  of  his  old  friends.  Around  this  large  picture 
were  grouped  many  smaller  ones,  all  likenesses  of  German 
and  American  students.  Scattered  around  the  room  were 
pipe-bowls,  stems,  ash-cups,  "  stoppers  "  (curious  little 
arms  and  legs  of  porcelain  for  plugging  the  pipes),  and 
the  other  paraphernalia  of  smoking.  Nearly  all  these 
articles  were  gifts.  The  German  plan  of  making  pres- 
ents, by  the  way,  is  a  curious  one.  Jones  and  Smith,  we 
will  suppose,  agree  to  dedicate  (dediciren)  to  each  other. 
They  select  two  articles  of  exactly  the  same  kind  and 


ATTACKING  GERMAN.  ^N     23 

value,  say  two  porcelain  pipe-bowls ;  each  pays  for  the 
other,  and  has  the  inscription  put  on :  Jones  to  his  dear 
Smith,  or  Smith  to  his  dear  Jones  (J.  sm.  —  In.  S.)  The 
advantage  of  the  system  is  that  you  get  a  keepsake  pf 
your  friend  without  feeling  that  you  have  put  yourself 
under  obligations.  Each  man  gives  as  good  as  he  gets. 

What  books  E possessed  were  stacked  up  in  a 

rather  rickety  set  of  shelves  under  the  sabres,  E 

was  an  industrious  student,  but,  being  a  chemist,  was  not 
supposed  to  have  need  of  a  large  library.  His  helps  to 
study  were  in  the  laboratory,  in  the  shape  of  apparatus. 

Every  student  in  a  university  town  occupies  a  room  like 
the  one  that  I  have  described.  The  room  may  be  larger 
or  smaller,  may  be  located  front  or  back,  its  furniture 
may  be  more  or  less  elegant,  but  the  general  features  do 
not  vary.  The  point  to  which  I  desire  to  call  especial 
attention  is  this :  every  student,  no  matter  how  straitened 
in  circumstances,  has  a  study  and  a  sleeping  room  exclu- 
sively to  himself;  "  chumming  "  is  unknown  in  Germany, 
except  occasionally  in  the  large  cities,  Berlin  and  Vienna, 
where  the  disproportionately  high  rents  force  a  few  of 
the  poorer  students  to  take  apartments  in  common.  But 
even  in  Berlin  and  Vienna,  chumming  is  looked  upon  as 
a  last  resort.  The  superiority  of  the  German  system  is 
incalculable ;  it  is  more  manly,  it  conduces  to  indepen- 
dence of  study  and  prevents  much  waste  of  time.  One 
who  shares  his  room  with  a  chum  is  often  at  the  mercy 
of  bores ;  he  can  turn  away  his  own  visitors  perhaps,  but 
not  his  chum's.  Besides,  if  two  or  more  students  wish 


24  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

. 

at  any  time  to  work  up  a  subject  after  the  cooperative 
fashion,  as  the  Germans  frequently  do,  they  can  accom- 
plish the  object  by  simply  meeting  at  each  other's  rooms. 
But  really  independent,  thorough  research,  study  that  is 
to  tell  in  after  life,  can  be  done  only  in  the  privacy  of 
one's  own  sanctum. 

There  is  no  royal  road  to  learning,  at  least  to  learning 
a  living  language.  German,  for  instance,  is  a  vast  treas- 
ure-house from  which  each  one  carries  off  only  so  much 
as  his  shoulders  will  bear.  A  volume  might  easily  be 
filled  with  all  the  schemes,  some  sensible,  others  absurd, 
for  making  the  first  approaches  to  German  easier.  The 
truth  is  that  German  never  can  be  made  easy,  not  even 
for  the  natives ;  there  is  a  subtle,  lurking  spirit  in  the 
language  that  always  baffles  the  vision  and  eludes  the 
grasp.  Speaking  with  the  experience  of  thirteen  years,  I 
feel  it  my  duty  to  warn  the  reader  against  all  "  easy  cour- 
ses "  or  works  entitled  "  German  in  Thirty  Lessons  With- 
out a  Master."  I  doubt  whether  such  a  thing  as  a 
smattering  of  German  is  desirable  or  even  possible.  The 
man  who  thinks  that  he  can  "  get  up  "  German  in  a  month 
or  so,  as  he  might  French,  will  speedily  discover  his  mis- 
take. Permit  me  to  quote,  with  reference  to  this  very 
view  of  the  case,  one  of  Klopstock's  Odes  which  is  not  so 
well  known  as  it  should  be  : 

Dass  Keine,  welche  lebt,  mit  Deutschlands  Sprache  sich 
In  den  zu  kiihnen  Wettstreit  wage  ! 
Sie  ist  —  damit  ich's  kurz,  mit  ihrer  Kraft  es  sage, 
An  mannigfalt'ger  Uranlage. 


ATTACKING  GERMAN.  2$ 

Zu  immer  neuer  und  doch  deutsches  Wendung  reich ; 

1st,  was  wir  selbst  in  jenen  grauen  Jahren, 

Da  Tacitus  uns  forschte,  waren : 

Gesondert,  ungemischt,  und  nur  sich  selber  gleich. 

Nothing  is  farther  from  my  purpose  than  to  write  a 
dissertation  either  upon  the  language  or  upon  the  best 
way  of  learning  it.  After  all  there  is  only  one  way, 
namely :  to  set  about  the  work  resolutely,  to  take  plenty 
of  time,  and  never  to  grow  weary,  especially  of  writing 
exercises.  Scarcely  one  of  the  many  Americans  who 
were  contemporary  with  myself  in  Gottingen  seemed  to 
devote  enough  time  to  the  study  of  German  grammar. 
The  common  belief  was  that  one  set  of  lessons  in  gram- 
mar was  quite  sufficient ;  after  you  had  finished  Otto  or 
Woodbury,  for  instance,  you  might  lay  aside  your  gram- 
mar and  trust  to  reading  for  further  progress.  Besides 
the  general  feeling  of  impatience,  there  is  a  practical 
motive  that  prompts  to  such  a  course  ;  nine  of  every  ten 
Americans  who  study  in  Germany  regard  a  knowledge  of 
the  language  as  only  the  means  to  some  ulterior  object, 
generally  a  knowlege  of  chemistry  or  medicine.  It  is  not 
surprising,  then,  that  they  reduce  their  preliminary  study 
to  a  minimum,  in  order  that  they  may  begin  what  they 
consider  their  real  work  as  soon  as  possible.  They  are 
satisfied  with  learning  enough  grammar  to  recognize  the 
connection  of  words  in  a  sentence  ;  the  technical  words  of 
their  science,  which  are  to  them  the  all  important  ones, 
they  know  by  actual  practice ;  all  others  are  relatively 
unimportant.  They  read  a  play  or  two  of  Schiller,  some 
3 


26  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

of  Goethe's  poems,  perhaps  a  few  of  Uhland's  or  Heine's. 
Of  the  language  as  an  entirety,  of  German  literature  as  a 
body  of  thought,  they  have  but  a  very  inadequate  con- 
ception. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  to  be. regretted.  The  num- 
ber of  Americans  who  finish  their  studies  in  Germany  is 
already  large,  and  grows  from  year  to  year.  Is  it  asking 
too  much  to  expect  from  them,  on  their  return,  sound 
general  notions  of  German  literature  and  thought,  some 
familiarity  with  the  steps  by  which  Germany  has  been 
conducted  to  her  present  pinnacle  of  greatness?  At  all 
events,  is  it  not  a  shame  that  many  a  Ph.  D.,  who 
has  passed  two  or  three  years  in  the  land  of  Lessing, 
should  be  beaten  by  his  stay-at-home  brother  or  sister  in 
attempting  to  explain  the  mysteries  of  an  easy  play  by 
Kotzebue  or  Benedix  ? 

As  for  myself,  I  took  a  serious  view  of  the  question, 
and  resolved  to  master  the  language  as  far  as  in  me  lay. 
In  one  respect,  certainly,  my  plan  differed  from  that  of 
every  one  else.  Knowing  that  there  was  at  least  a  year 
before  me,  I  decided  to  spend  six  months  with  the  gram- 
mar, before  venturing  upon  any  course  of  reading.  This 
may  seem  strange,  if  not  paradoxical ;  how  can  one  learn 
a  language  without  reading  its  authors  ?  Easily  enough. 
Text-books,  of  grammar,  phrase-books  give  models  of 
forms  and  sentences ;  the  beginner,  for  whom  the  form 
is  every  thing,  can  learn  more  from  a  good  grammar  than 
from  the  best  reading;  that  is  to  say,  he  will  get,  in  a 
condensed  and  a  more  available  shape,  what  lies  scat- 


ATTACKING  GERMAN,  27 

tered  over  many  pages  of  an  ordinary  book.  By  writing 
exercises  constructed  for  the  express  purpose,  he  can 
train  himself  in  the  use  of  the  very  modes  of  expression 
in  which  he  may  be  weakest.  Let  me  give  an  example 
or  two.  The  most  perplexing  features  of  the  German 
language  are  the  so  called  passive  voice,  the  government 
of  the  prepositions,  the  separable  and  inseparable  verbs, 
the  use  of  the  particles  of  motion,  hin  and  her.  It  is  not 
so  difficult  to  glide  over  these  peculiarities  as  they  arise 
in  reading;  the  beginner  can  translate  after  a  fashion, 
making  out  the  meaning  by  the  aid  of  the  context.  But 
it  is  a  much  more  serious  undertaking  to  master  them  so 
as  to  use  them,  and  as  it  is  impossible  to  put  together 
five  consecutive  sentences  in  German  in  which  they  will 
not  be  involved,  the  shortest  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is 
to  learn  them  once  for  all,  by  writing  and  committing 
to  memory  a  great  number  of  model  sentences  in  which 
the  same  principles  are  applied  again  and  again. 

It  is  of  little  avail  in  German,  or  indeed  in  any  lan- 
guage, to  commit  rules  to  memory,  unless  the  student  has 
an  example  for  every  rule  and  every  modification  of 
a  rule  at  his  tongue's  'end,  ready  for  use  at  any  moment 
and  in  every  place.  This  result  can  be  attained  only 
through  a  generous  outlay  of  time  and  patience,  and 
incessant  drill  in  certain  standard  forms,  what  a  French- 
man might  call  cadres  of  expression.  It  is  a  common 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  beginner  must  acquire  a 
large  stock  of  words;  fifteen  hundred,  perhaps  even 
less,  will  answer  for  all  ordinary  conversation  and 


' 
, 

28  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


writing.  The  first  and  chief  thing  is  to  learn  how  to 
put  these  fifteen  hundred  words  together,  to  assign  each 
one  to  its  proper  place  in  the  sentence  and  to  show  its 
grammatical  relations  to  other  words.  That  done,  but 
not  sooner,  the  student  may  begin  to  enlarge  his  vocab- 
ulary. 

Another  point  has  been  too  much  overlooked,  namely, 
the  importance,  not  to  say  the  necessity,  of  translating 
copiously  from  the  mother  tongue  into  the  foreign. 
There  is  probably  no  other  means  of  seizing  the  spirit 
of  a  foreign  language.  The  labor,  I  am  aware,  is  im- 
mense, but  it  will  be  found  to  yield  the  largest  returns. 
It  is  one  thing  to  be  able,  grammar  and  dictionary  in 
hand,  to  pick  your  way  through  a  German  book;  it  is 
quite  another  to  read  it  off,  looking  out  a  word  here  and 
there  perhaps,  but  feeling  that  all  the  idioms,  the  forms 
of  thought,  are  familiar  to  you,  that  you  yourself  might 
have  expressed  your  own  ideas  after  very  nearly  the  same 
fashion.  It  is  the  final  stage  of  the  student's  progress, 
and  when  he  has  reached  it  he  may  well  exult,  for  he  is 
in  possession  of  a  new  power.  But  this  cheering  result 
is  not  the  work  of  a  week  or  a  month ;  it  can  be  attained 
only  by  unremitting  and  well  directed  efforts.  The  way 
to  it  leads  through  composition  and  translation  from  the 
mother  tongue.  On  many  points  composition  and  trans- 
lation will  coincide;  they  both  have  the  advantage  of 
breaking  up  one's  habits  of  thinking  and  forcing  them 
into  new  channels.  By  attempting  to  write  as  a  German 
would  write,  we  acquire  the  habit  of  using  German  words 


A  TTA CKING  GERMAN.  29 

with  the  exactest  knowledge  of  their  meaning,  we  accus- 
tom ourselves  to  the  use  of  particles  of  thought  that  do 
not  exist  in  English,  but  which  cannot  be  omitted  from 
the  German  phrase,  we  are  made  to  feel  the  importance 
of  correct  grammar,  not  as  something  foreign  to  our- 
selves, but  as  the  only  tolerable  or  even  intelligible  way 
of  connecting  single  words.  The  advantage  of  transla- 
tion over  free  composition  is  this.  Each  man's  range  of 
words  and  ideas  is  limited.  When  we  compose,  even  in 
our  mother  tongue,  we  are  liable  to  fall  into  a  sort  of  rut. 
If  we  write  in  a  foreign  language,  this  natural  tendency 
is  only  increased  by  the  constant  temptation  to  use  the 
most  familiar  words  and  phrases ;  we  are  apt  to  say  what 
'we  have  to  say  in  the  shortest  and  easiest  way  possible, 
so  as  to  avoid  trouble.  We  fall  into  a  school-boy  style 
from  which  it  is  almost  impossible  to  escape.  But  when 
we  undertake  to  translate  the  writings  of  a  stranger,  we 
have  before  us  work  of  a  higher  order ;  we  are  held  to 
reproduce,  to  the  best  of  our  ability,  words,  ideas  and 
sentiments  that  lie  outside  our  own  narrow  sphere. 
Instead  of  merely  working  up  old  material,  we  enlarge 
our  capacity  of  expression  in  both  languages. 

I  trust  that  the  reader  does  not  take  me  to  be  better  at 
preaching  than  at  practising.  The  advice  that  I  have 
just  given  him  may  sound  strange  and  impracticable. 
But  he  can  rest  assured  that  it  is  sincerely  meant,  and 
is  the  fruit  of  my  own  personal  experience.  During  the 
first  six  months  of  my  stay  in  Gottingen,  I  read  nothing 
that  could  be  called  a  German  book.  It  seemed  to  me 
*3 


30  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

profanation,  as  it  were,  to  stumble  through  Goethe  or 
Schiller,  hunting  up  every  other  word  in  the  dictionary, 
striving  to  seize  the  poetry  of  the  original  yet  succumb- 
ing to  every  paltry  irregular  verb  or  preposition  governing 
different  cases.  It  was  too  much  like  parsing  the  "  Para- 
dise Lost."  I  felt  persuaded  that  it  would  be  better  in 
the  long  run  to  wait  until  I  had  developed  myself  into 
somewhat  of  a  German,  before  intruding  into  the  sacred 
precincts  of  German  art.  The  reader  will  have  the 
opportunity,  in  a  subsequent  place,  of  judging  whether 
the  experiment  succeeded. 

So  I  settled  down  to  an  unmerciful  "grind."  For  six 
long  months  I  toiled  over  grammar  and  grammars.  I 
wrote  all  the  exercises  in  Woodbury  and  Otto,  and  a  good 
many  in  Ollendorf,  until  this  last  grew  insufferably  tedi- 
ous, and  then  mastered  Plate.  This  work  is  not  so 
well  known  in  America  as  it  should  be ;  the  author,  prin- 
cipal of  the  Commercial  Academy  of  Bremen,  is  thor- 
oughly familiar  with  both  languages,  and  has  treated 
certain  subjects,  e.  g.,  the  separable  verbs,  the  passive 
voice,  and  the  German  substitutes  for  the  participial 
phrase,  better  and  more  fully  than  the  other  grammar-' 
ians.*  Woodbury  I  found  chiefly  valuable  for  the  collec- 
tion of  idiomatic  phrases  illustrating  the  use  of  the 
German  prepositions.  Besides  these  English-German 
grammars,  which  I  literally  "  swallowed  "  word  for  word, 
I  also  consulted  incessantly  Heyse's  Schulgrammatik  der 

*It  was  not  until  my  return  that  I  became  acquainted  with  Dr.  Arnold's 
Orerman  Exercises.    They  are  the  best  of  the  kind  in  existence. 


ATTACKING  GERMAN.  31 

deutschen  Sprache^  a  book  written  for  the  use  of  pupils 
in  the  upper  classes  of  the  gymnasia.  But  my  hardest 
work  was  in  translating  from  English  into  German. 
Here  I  tried  my  hand  at  all  sorts  of  books  and  styles, 
from  Hawthorne's  "  Marble  Faun  "  to  leaders  from  the 
London  Times.  My  plan  was  to  translate  a  few  passages 
from  one  book,  enough  to  seize  the  peculiarities  of  the 
author's  style  and  diction,  and  then  pass  to  another.  In 
looking  over  my  old  copy-books  and  manuscripts,  blurred 
and  corrected  in  places  so  as  to  be  scarcely  legible,  it  is 
easy  for  me  now  to  see  that,  notwithstanding  the  help  of 
grammar  and  teacher,  I  wrote  a  good  deal  of  rubbish, 
clumsy,  un-German  sentences  that  no  native  would  think 
of  putting  on  paper.  But  with  all  their  imperfections, 
these  exercises  answered  their  purpose  ;  they  gave  me  a 
better  insight  into  the  peculiarities  of  the  language  than 
I  could  have  got  in  any  other  way.  There  was  scarcely 
an  English  idiom  that  I  did  not  attempt  to  "  upset "  into 
German  after  a  fashion. 

Permit  me  to  narrate  one  amusing  incident.  In  the 
English  text  that  I  happened  to  be  working  upon 
occurred  the  phrase  "he  said,  by  the  way."  The  expres- 
sion "  by  the  way "  I  had  left  blank,  not  finding  any 
equivalent  in  the  dictionary.  "But,"  said  my  teacher, 
"why  don't  you  translate:  auf  dem  Wege?"  It  was  in 
vain  I  tried  to  convey  the  idea  of  the  English,  how  the 
word  "  way  "  was  not  used  in  a  literal  sense,  like  "  road," 
but  in  a  figurative  sense,  to  denote  something  thrown  in, 
as  it  were,  something  incidental.  What  misled  the 


32  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

teacher  was  the  circumstance  that  the  person  speaking 
was  actually  in  motion  at  the  time  described;  of  course, 
then,  the  phrase  must  be  auf  dem  Wege.  I  felt  instinc- 
tively that  he  was  wrong ;  but  how  hit  upon  a  word  or 
an  idiom  that  would  convey  the  idea  exactly?  We 
talked  to  and  fro,  I  exhausted  my  vocabulary  and  the 
teacher  his  patience,  until  we  sat  confronting  each  other 
as  disconcerted  as  a  bridal  couple  after  their  first  quarrel. 
All  at  once  a  light,  as  the  German  students  would  say, 
a  "tallow-light,"  dawned  upon  me.  I  bethought  me  of 
the  French  phrase  en  passant,  and  flourished  it  in  triumph 
at  my  teacher.  "  Ach  so  !  (with  the  delicate  sneer  that 
so  can  be  made  to  suggest  in  German).  En  passant!  Na 
nun,  naturlich  ;  BEILAUFIG  wollen  Sie  sagen  i  "  I  con- 
sulted my  watch;  we  had  spent  ten  minutes  in  finding 
one  word.  A  liberal  outlay  of  time,  but  then  the  word 
was  there,  and  furthermore  it  had  been  got  in  such  a 
way  as  insured  its  never  being  forgotten;  there  was  no 
danger  of  my  losing  sight  of  beil'dufig. 

The  teacher,  "  by  the  way,"  was  not  a  particularly  good 
English  scholar.  At  that  time  in  his  third  or  fourth 
semester,  he  was  a  good  philologist,  but  had  read  very 
little  English  and  had  never  had  an  opportunity  of  hear- 
ing or  of  speaking  the  language.  So  far  from  regarding 
this  as  a  disadvantage,  I  considered  it  then  and  still  con- 
sider it  a  positive  gain.  It  forced  me  into  the  position 
of  talking  German  even  in  my  lessons,  of  explaining  all 
my  wants  in  my  own  phraseology.  Whenever  any  diffi- 
cult passage  or  peculiar  idiom  occurred,  as  the  above,  I 


ATTACKING  GERMAN.  33 

had  to  give  the  sense  of  the  entire  context  by  "beating 
around  the  bush,"  by  stating  what  the  thing  was  not,  until 
the  teacher  could  gather  from  my  broken  utterances  what 
it  really  was  j  then,  when  the  answer  came,  when  the  cor- 
rect rendering  was  reached,  it  made  its  impression.  It 
did  not  go  in  by  one  ear  and  out  by  the  other,  the  mind 
was  ready  to  receive  and  retain  it.  Judging  from  the 
experiences  of  my  friends,  I  am  disposed  to  look  upon 
"crack"  teachers  in  Germany  with  some  mistrust.  In 
the  first  place,  they  are  apt  to  cultivate  their  own  Eng- 
lish at  the  expense  of  the  pupil's  German.  In  the  next 
place,  the  pupil,  finding  the  teacher  thoroughly  prepared 
on  all  points,  lapses  into  a  state  altogether  too  passive ; 
he  is  content  to  sit  and  listen  to  explanations,  to  take 
every  thing  for  granted,  to  rely  upon  the  teacher  to  do 
the  thinking.  After  all,  the  chief  result  to  be  aimed  at  is 
to  train  and  develop  the  faculties,  to  acquire  the  habit 
of  expressing  one's  self  in  German,  to  get  a  German  mem- 
ory and  turn  of  thought,  as  it  were.  This  accomplished, 
the  rest  will  follow  as  a  matter  of  course,  in  due  time  and 
with  patience  ;  but  whether  a  certain  word  is  learned  one 
week  or  the  next,  is  a  matter  of  comparative  indifference. 
The  more  haste  at  first,  the  less  speed  at  last. 

The  reader  need  not  infer  from  the  above  account  that 
I  read  absolutely  no  German  during  the  first  six  months. 
I  skimmed  the  papers  every  day  for  news  from  home  — 
German  leaders  were  too  heavy  for  my  taste,  in  fact  they 
are  so  at  the  present  day !  —  and  read  short  pieces  of 
poetry  and  an  occasional  story  in  the  Gartenlaube  or 


34  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Ueber  Land  und  Meer.     But  I  kept  carefully  in  abeyance 
whatever  looked  like  literature. 

This  plan  of  devoting  one's  self  exclusively  to  grammar 
may  seem  to  conflict  with  the  opinions  expressed  by  Mat- 
thew Arnold  *  upon  the  aim  and  methods  of  linguistic 
study,  opinions  moreover  with  which  I  heartily  agree. 
Matthew  Arnold  says  :  "  An  immense  development  of 
grammatical  studies,  and  an  immense  use  of  Latin  and 
Greek  composition,  take  so  much  of  the  pupil's  time,  that 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  he  has  not  any  sense  at  all  of 
Greek  and  Latin  literature  as  literature,  and  ends  his 
studies  without  getting  any.  His  verbal  scholarship  and 
his  composition  he  is  pretty  sure  in  after  life  to  drop,  and 
then  all  his  Greek  and  Latin  is  lost.  Greek  and  Latin 
literature,  if  he  had  ever  caught  the  notion  of  them, 
would  have  been  far  more  likely  to  stick  by  him."  But 
this  conflict  was  apparent  rather  than  real.  I  regarded 
my  grammatical  studies  and  translations  strictly  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  and  merely  crowded  them  into  a  period 
of  six  months  instead  of  letting  them  prolong  themselves 
over  a  year  and  a  half.  It  seemed  to  me,  and  still  seems 
to  me,  that  such  a  plan  after  all  saves  time.  No  sooner, 
however,  did  translation  and  grammar  threaten  to  become 
a  mere  drudgery,  a  mere  tread-mill  round  without  pro- 
gress, than  I  dropped  them  forever,  as  any  thing  more 
than  incidental  work,  and  took  up  reading,  literature  in 
Mr.  Arnold's  sense  of  the  term,  as  the  reader  will  learn 
in  the  sequel. 

' ; — 

*  Higher  Schools  and  Universities  in  Germany ',  p.  183.     (Edition  of  1874). 


CHAPTER  III. 

Matriculation  and  Lectures. 

Deeming  it  advisable  to  preserve  a  certain  unity  of  sub- 
ject, I  have  thrown  all  remarks  upon  the  study  of  German 
grammar  into  the  preceding  chapter,  in  order  to  dispose 
of  them,  although  thereby  making  that  chapter  overlap 
the  present  by  several  months.  I  was  not  through  with 
my  grammar-travail  until  early  spring,  but  I  was  matricu- 
lated in  October. 

A  German  university  is  the  one  institution  in  the  world 
that  has  for  its  motto:  Time  is  NOT  money.  The 
university  is  a  law  unto  itself,  each  professor  is  a  law  unto 
himself,  each  student  revolves  on  his  own  axis  and  at  his 
own  rate  of  speed.  English  and  Americans  have  formed 
not  a  few  queer  notions  of  university  life  in  Germany.  They 
•picture  to  themselves  a  town  like  Gottingen,  for  instance, 
as  a  place  where  everybody  is  running  a  break-neck  race 
for  scholarly  fame,  where  days  are  months  and  hours 
days,  where  minutes  are  emphatically  the  gold-dust  of 
time.  The  truth  is  that  no  one  hurries  or  gets  into  a 
feaze  over  any  thing,  the  university  itself  setting  a  good 
example.  The  academic  year  is  divided  into  two  terms, 
called  the  winter  and  the  summer  semesters.  The  winter 
semester  covers  nominally  five  months,  from  October 


36  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

> 

1 5th  to  March  i5th.  In  reality,  both  beginning  and  end 
are  whittled  off,  so  to  speak,  and  there  is  a  pause  of  two 
weeks  at  Christmas,  so  that  the  actual  working  time 
is  little  over  four  months.  From  March  i5th  to  April 
1 5th  is  the  spring  vacation.  The  summer  semester  then 
runs  to  August  i5th,  but  practically  the  work  is  over  by 
the  first  of  that  month. 

Supposing  yourself  to  be  a  tyro  in  such  matters,  and 
the  1 5th  of  October  to  be  drawing  near,  you  are  naturally 
impatient  to  be  matriculated  and  at  work.  But  you  will 
discover  that  the  older  students  are  not  yet  back,  and,  on 
consulting  the  "  Black  Board,"  you  see  no  announcement 
of  lectures.  There  is  no  hurry.  A  day  or  two  after  the 
1 5th,  perhaps,  a  general  announcement  is  affixed,  to  the 
effect  that  candidates  for  matriculation  may  present 
themselves  at  the  Aula  on  such  and  such  days  of  the 
week,  at  certain  hours.  The  ceremony  is  a  simple  one. 
In  the  first  place,  you  proceed  to  the  secretary's  office  and 
deposit  there  your  "  documents  "  entitling  you  to  admis- 
sion. For  a  German,  this  is  a  matter  of  some  impor- 
tance ;  he  is  not  ^admitted  unless  he  is  able  to  produce 
certain  papers,  the  principal  one  of  which  is  a  certificate 
that  he  has  attended  a  gymnasium  or  Realschule  and  has 
passed  satisfactorily  the  final  examination  (AbituHenten- 
examen).  As  the  university  holds  no  extrance-examina- 
tion,  this  is  the  only  guarantee  it  can  have  that  those 
seeking  admission  are  properly  qualified.  But  in  the 

*Or  admitted  only  under  very  grave  conditions  and  restrictions. 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  37 

case  of  a  foreigner,  the  utmost  liberality  is  displayed. 
Ten  years,  ago,  while  Gottingen  was  a  Hanoverian  uni- 
versity, the  only  document  required  of  a  foreigner  was 
his  passport.  It  is  the  same  to  this  day  in  Leipsic, 
Heidelberg,  and  the  South  German  universities.  The 
Prussian  universities  are  a  trifle  stricter ;  in  the  case  of 
Americans,  they  generally  expect  a  diploma  of  Bachelor 
of  Arts  or  the  like,  but  they  can  scarcely  be  said  to  exact 
it.  I  doubt  whether  any  German  university  would  refuse 
to  admit  any  foreign  candidate  who  showed  by  his  size 
and  bearing  that  he  was  really  a  young  man  able  to  look 
after  himself,  and  not  a  mere  boy.  Besides,  it  would  be 
easy  to  evade  the  Prussian  requirements,  if  they  were 
strictly  enforced,  by  first  entering  a  non-Prussian  univer- 
sity, say  Leipsic,  and  after  remaining  there  a  semester  or 
two,  procuring  an  honorable  dismissal  (Abgangszeugniss) 
and  then  removing  to  Berlin  or  Bonn.  By  virtue  of  the 
parity  existing  among  the  universities  of  Germany,  a 
student  in  good  standing  in  one  is  entitled  to  admission 
to  any  other.  But  the  Germans  know  perfectly  well  that 
they  can  afford  to  be  liberal  toward  foreigners.  They 
take  it  for  granted  that  when  a  young  man  puts  himself 
to  the  trouble  and  expense  of  a  visit  to  Germany,  the 
chances  are  that  he  means  to  do  well.  The  mere  fact  of 
his  coming  is  a  compliment  to  them,  which  they  recipro- 
cate by  making  things  easy  for  him.  Foreigners  do  not 
interfere  with  the  course  of  instruction,  while  they  do 
lend  eclat  to  the  university  and  help  to  swell  its  income. 
There  is  nothing  selfish  or  exclusive  about  the  higher 
4 


38  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

education  in  Germany ;  although  intended  for  Germans, 
it  is  open  to  all  who  choose  to  avail  themselves  of  it, 
capacious  enough  to  accommodate  every  type  of  mind, 
and  absolutely  free  from  dwarfing  restrictions.  The 
newly  matriculated  student,  the  Fuchs,  is  made  to  feel 
from  the  start  that  he  is  his  own  master.* 

But  I  am  digressing.  The  next  step  in  matriculation  is 
to  visit  the  treasurer  (Quaestor)  and  pay  the  matriculation 
fees.  These  vary  somewhat  with  the  different  universities, 
but  are  nowhere  excessive.  In  Gottingen  they  amounted 
to  about  five  dollars.  In  exchange  for  your  fees  you  get 
two  weighty  documents,  the  a  b  c  of  student  life  :  your 
Anmeldungs-buch)  and  your  student  card.  The  former 
varies  in  size  and  shape  (in  Berlin  they  used  the  Anmel- 
dungs-bogcn  as  distinguished  from  buch\  but  whether 
book  or  merely  folded  sheet,  it  answers  the  same  purpose ; 
it  is  to  be  your  record  of  work  done.  Imagine  to  your- 
self a  large,  stout  book,  like  a  copy-book ;  each  page  is 
for  a  semester,  and  there  are  eight  or  ten  pages  in  all,  that 
being  the  estimated  maximum  number  of  semesters  that 
you  will  remain ;  if  you  study  longer,  you  can  get  a  fresh 
book.  The  page  is  ruled  in  vertical  columns,  one  for  the 
names  of  the  courses  of  lectures  that  you  hear,  another 
for  the  treasurer's  certificate  that  you  have  paid  the 
lecture-fees,  a  third  and  a  fourth  for  the  professor's  cer- 
tificates that  you  have  attended  the  course,  entered  at 
the  beginning  and  at  the  end  of  the  semesters.  The 

*  The  applicant  has  also  to  sign  a  pledge  that  he  will  not  become  a  member 
of  any  secret  political  society. 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  39 

modus  operandi  is  as  follows.     After  deciding  what  lec- 
tures you  will  hear,  you  yourself  write  the  official  title  in 
the    left-hand    column.      You    then    get    the   Quaestor 
to  affix  his  teste  in  the  second  column.     This  entitles 
you  to  a  seat,  and  if  the  course  happens  to  be  a  popular 
one,  attended  by  large  numbers,  the  sooner  you  secure 
your  seat  the  better.     After  "  hearing  "  a  week  or  two, 
you  make  your  visit  upon  the  professor  himself,  selecting 
some   hour  in   the   forenoon  when  he  has  no   official 
engagement.      If  you  wish  to  conform  rigorously  to  eti- 
quette, you  must  appear  in  grand  toilet,  i.  e.,  in  dress 
coat  and  kid-gloves,  although  the  chances  are  ninety-nine 
in  a  hundred  that  in  so  doing  you  will  catch  the  profes- 
sor himself  in  wrapper  and  slippers,  unshaven  and  smok- 
ing a  long  pipe.     Your  appearance  in  grand  toilet  is  an 
intimation  that  you  not  merely  wish  to  have  your  attend- 
ance at  lectures  certified,  but  that  you  know  "  what  is 
what  "  and  take  the  liberty  of  presenting  yourself  to  him. 
as  gentleman  to  gentleman.    Whether  you  remain  to  chat 
for  a  few  minutes  or  simply  present  your  book  for  certifi- 
cation, will  depend  upon  the  manner  of  the  professor 
himself ;  some  instructors  make  it  a  point  to  detain  the 
student  for  about  ten  minutes,  others  regard  the  affair  as 
something  to   be  disposed   of  in   the   quickest   manner 
possible,  and  scarcely  even  ask  the  student  to  sit  down. 
With  regard  to  the  second  certification,  given  at  the  close 
of  the  lecture  course,  there  is  no  fixed  rule ;  any  time 
not  too  long  before  the  end  of  the  semester  will  do ;  you 
can  even  wait  until  the  next  semester  or  still  later,  in  fact 


40  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

you  need  not  go  in  person,  but  can  send  the  book  around 
by  your  servant-girl  or  your  boot-black. 

The  certifying  to  attendance  at  lectures  has  lapsed  into 
an  empty  form.  Every  now  and  then  a  professor,  inspired 
with  unwonted  zeal  for  his  vocation,  tries  to  make  it  a 
means  of  enforcing  attendance,  of  preventing  "cutting." 
But  such  isolated  attempts  speedily  die  out  and  are  for- 
gotten ;  if  you  show  yourself  two  or  three  times  at  the 
beginning  and  a  dozen  times  at  the  end  of  the  semester, 
your  attendance  is  certified  as  a  matter  of  course, 
although  you  may  have  "  cut  "  the  entire  intervening  time. 
As  an  item  of  my  own  personal  experience,  I  can  state 
that  Professor  Gneist  of  Berlin  certified  to  my  attend- 
ance at  his  lectures  on  the  Institutes,  {fleissig  besucht\ 
although  he  must  have  known,  if  he  knew  anything,  that 
I  had  not  been  inside  his  lecture-room  within  a  month. 
The  real  proof  of  a  student's  diligence  is  not  the  profes- 
sor's certificate  but  ability  to  pass  a  searching  examination. 

In  a  large  city,  like  Berlin,  it  is  not  even  necessary  to 
call  upon  your  professor;  the  latter  remains  for  a  few 
minutes  after  every  lecture  during  the  first  week  or  two, 
so  as  to  give  the  students  an  opportunity  of  coming  for- 
ward and  presenting  their  Anmeldungs-bucher. 

The  student-card,  like  the  Anmeldungs-buch,  is  a 
peculiarly  German  institution.  When  you  are  matricu- 
lated, not  only  is  your  name  entered  in  the  general  univer- 
sity register,  but  you  must  be  inscribed  under  some  one  of 
the  four  general  faculties,  viz. :  theology,  law,  medicine, 
philosophy.  You  then  receive  a  card,  not  much  larger 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  41 

than  an  ordinary  visiting  card,  of  stout  pasteboard.  On 
the  face  of  the  card  is  placed  your  name,  Herr  N.  N.,  aus 
(from)  such  and  such  a  place,  student  in  such  a  faculty. 
On  the  reverse  is  a  printed  announcement,  couched  in 
the  knottiest  of  German  sentences,  that  none  but  the 
accomplished  scholar  of  both  English  and  German  can 
untie,  to  the  effect  that  you  are  always  to  carry  this  card 
about  you  on  your  person,  and  produce  it  whenever  it 
may  be  demanded  by  the  university  or  town  police,  under 
penalty  of  a  fine  of  twenty  Silber  Groschen  (50  cents). 

This  simple  card  is  your  Legitimation.  In  a  university 
that  has  a  complete  jurisdiction  of  its  own,  as  Gottingen 
has,  at  least  did  have  in  the  days  of  which  I  write,  pro- 
ducing this  card  secures  you  against  all  municipal  arrest. 
You  are  member  of  a  special  corporation,  and  as  such  are 
amenable  only  to  the  university  court ;  neither  civil  nor 
criminal  action'  can  be  brought  against  you  in  the  ordin- 
ary courts,  but  must  be  laid  before  the  university  court  in 
the  first  instance.  If  this  body  should  find  you  guilty  of 
a  crime  or  a  grave  misdemeanor,  it  would  then  surrender 
you  to  the  Supreme  Court,  Criminal  Section,  the  German 
equivalent  to  our  Circuit  Court.  You  cannot  be  arrested 
or  locked  up  by  a  town  policeman ;  all  he  can  do  with 
you  is  to  keep  you  for  a  few  minutes  in  custody,  until  he 
finds  a  University  Pedell  (beadle)  to  take  you  in  charge. 
I  hope  to  be  able  to  speak  more  at  length  in  another 
place  of  this  curious  relic  of  mediaevalism. 

Your  card  in  your  pocket  and  your  Anmeldungsbuch 
in  your  hand,  in  company  with  ten  or  twelve  other  candi- 
*4 


42  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

dates,  you  are  then  ushered  into  the  august  presence  of 
the  Rector  magnificus*  or  Chancellor  of  the  University. 
You  will  probably  find  him  to  be  a  man  much  as  other 
men,  only  looking  a  trifle  uncomfortable  in  his  dress-coat. 
The  rector  makes  a  short  harangue,  of  which,  if  you  are 
in  the  backward  condition  that  I  was,  you  will  probably 
understand  one  word  in  five,  but  the  substance  of  which 
is  that  he  is  rejoiced  to  see  so  many  promising  young 
men  aspirants  to  the  higher  culture  imparted  by  the 
Georgia  Augusta  (the  official  name  of  the  university), 
and  that  he  hopes  you  will  be  good  fellows  and  make  the 
most  of  your  time  and  opportunities.  In  token  of  which, 
each  candidate  in  turn  shakes  hands  with  him.  You  are 
then  ushered  out,  to  make  room  for  a  fresh  squad  who 
have  just  got  their  books  and  cards. 

The  ceremony  is  over;<ryou  are  a  German  student,  or  a 
student  in  Germany,  at  last,  ready  to  absorb  all  the 
knowledge  and  Bildung  that  your  Alma  Mater  deals  out 
with  lavish  hand.  If  you  happen  to  be  of  an  amiable, 
convivial  turn  of  mind,  your  spirits  will  be  buoyant ;  you 
will  consider  it  your  privilege  and  duty  to  celebrate  the 
occasion  by  "  dedicating  "  a  bowl  of  punch  to  your  elder 
brethren  and  compatriots  who  have  helped  you  through 
the  ordeal  by  telling  you  where  to  go  and  what  to  do. 
You  and  they  will  then  make  an  afternoon  of  it,  driving 
out  to  the  Gleichen  or  the  Plesse  to  enjoy  the  scenery, 
and  indulge  in  coffee  in  the  open  air,  and  on  your  return, 


+Prorector^  in  universities  where  the  sovereign  is  the  nominal  head  of  the 
corporation. 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  43 

if  still  unsatisfied,  you  can  make  a  night  of  it  at  Fritz's 
or  the  Universitatskneipe.  Should  you  wake  up  the  next 
morning  with  a  headache,  a  Jammer  or  a  Kater,  you  can 
derive  consolation  from  two  circumstances :  first,  that  it 
is  only  what  has  happened  to  thousands  before  you  and 
will  happen  to  thousands  after  you ;  next,  that  you  have 
fairly  and  honorably  initiated  yourself  into  student-life. 
You  know  now  what  it  is  to  be  a  student,  as  Victor  Hugo 
might  felicitously  express  it,  avant  davoir  crache  du 
latin  dans  la  boutique  dun  professeur. 

Having  habituated  yourself  to  the  sense  of  your  new 
dignity,  the  next  step  is  to  decide  upon  the  professors  with 
whom  you  are  to  "hear."  This  will  not  be  so  easy  as 
you  might  suppose.  Unless  you  have  come  to  the  uni- 
versity with  a  preconceived  plan  of  study,  you  will  find 
yourself  embarrassed  by  the  wealth  from  which  you  are  to 
choose.  Fortunately  the  professors  give  you  ample  time 
for  making  a  suitable  selection. 

The  university  opens  nominally,  it  may  be  assumed,  on 
the  1 5th  of  October.  One  professor  announces  that  he 
will  begin ^ to  read  on  the  i8th,  another  on  the  2oth, 
a  third  on  the  25th ;  in  fact,  I  have  know^n  one  professor 
to  begin  his  course  on  the  pth  of  November.  Each  pro- 
fessor, it  has  been  already  observed,  is  a  law  unto  himself; 
the  main  point  is  that  he  read  at  least  one  course  of  lec- 
tures each  semester,  on  a  subject  of  his  own  selection,  for 
which  he  has  properly  qualified  himself,  and  that  he  cover 
about  so  much  ground.  Whether  he  begins  late  and 
stops  early,  is  a  matter  in  his  own  discretion.  This  is 


44  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES 

not  indifference  or  sloth  on  the  part  of  the  professors, 
but  rather  a  deliberate  forecasting  of  time  and  labor. 
Where  the  work  is  heavy  and  the  field  wide,  the  professor 
will  not  waste  an  hour.  Vangerow,  for  instance,  in  lec- 
turing at  Heidelberg  on  the  Pandects,  used  to  begin  on 
the  very  first  day  after  the  nominal  opening  day,  and  con- 
tinue, averaging  three  hours  daily  throughout  the  winter, 
until  two  weeks  after  the  semester  had  nominally  closed. 

Each  course  of  lectures  is  paid  for  separately,  the 
prices  varying  with  the  number  of  hours  occupied  in  the 
week.  Thus  a  single  course,  as  it  is  called,  one  taking 
four  or  five  hours  a  week,  is  charged  about  $5  ;  a  double 
course,  one  of  ten  or  twelve  hours  a  week,  would  cost  $10. 
The  usual  double  courses  are  those  on  the  Pandects,  on 
Anatomy  and  Physiology,  and  on  Chemistry.  The  high- 
est number  of  courses  (double  and  single)  that  I  have 
taken  in  any  one  semester  (my  fifth)  was  four,  aggregating 
twenty-five  hours  a  week,  for  which  I  paid  between  $25 
and  $30,  a  small  price,  in  view  of  the  quantity  and 
quality  of  the  instruction. 

Lecture-fees  are  paid  to  the  Quaestor^  and  not  to  the 
professor  direct,  although  this  latter  eventually  receives 
them,  or  the  greater  part  of  them,  from  the  Quaestor. 
The  new-comer  will  be  puzzled  at  the  distinction 
between  lectures  publice,  privatim,  and  privatissime.  Pub- 
lic lectures  are  those  held  by  a  professor  gratuitously, 
on  some  minor  topic  of  general  interest.  In  the  Prus- 
sian universities  each  professor  is  held  to  announce  at 
-least  one  such  lecture  a  term.  The  privatim  lectures 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES. 

are  the  ordinary  ones,  for  which  fees  are  paid  and  which 
are  regarded  as  the  substance  of  university  teaching.  A 
lecture  privatissime  is  nothing  more  than  our  private 
lesson,  the  terms  and  times  for  which  are  settled  by 
agreement  between  the  professor  and  the  student.  The 
fees  for  it  are  not  paid  to  the  quaestor,  and  the  lecture 
or  lesson,  is  not  entered  in  the  Anmeldungsbuch. 

I  have  used  more  than  once  the  expression  "  a  course 
of  lectures  " ;  to  guard  against  misapprehension,  it 
may  be  advisable  to  stop  and  explain  at  length.  By 
a  course  of  lectures  in  a  German  university  is  meant 
a  series  of  lectures  on  one  subject,  delivered  by  one 
man,  during  one  semester.  A  German  university  has, 
strictly  speaking,  no  course  of  instruction  ;  there  are  no 
classes,  the  students  are  not  arranged  according  to  their 
standing  by  years,  there  are  no  recitations,  there  is  no 
grading,  until  the  candidate  presents  himself  at  the 
end  of  three  or  four  years  for  his  doctor's  degree, 
when  the  quality  of  his  attainments  is  briefly  and 
roughly  indicated  by  the  wording  of  the  diploma. 
More  of  this  hereafter.  For  the  present  it  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  say  that  all  students  stand  on  a  footing  of 
perfect  equality  irt  the  eye  of  university,  and  that 
theoretically  each  one  is  free  to  select  such  lectures  in 
his  faculty  as  he  sees  fit  to  hear.  Practically,  the 
case  is  somewhat  different.  While  there  is  no  curri- 
culum, no  routine  of  studies  and  hours,  through  which 
all  students  have  to  pass,  as  in  our  colleges  and,  to  a 
less  extent,  in  the  English  universities,  still  there  are. 


46  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

certain  limitations  to  the  freedom  of  "hearing,"  which 
are  occasioned  by  the  nature  of  all  study.  When  a 
young  man  attends  the  university,  he  is  supposed  to 
have  some  definite  object  in  view;  he  wishes  to  fit 
himself  for  becoming  a  theologian,  or  a  lawyer,  or  a 
physician,  or  an  historian,  or  a  teacher  in  the  public 
schools,  or  a  chemist,  or  a  mathematician.  In  other 
words,  he  is  to  get  his  professional  outfit.  But  this 
of  itself  implies  the  pursuance  of  a  certain  routine  or 
order  in  study.  The  primary  or  fundamental  branches 
must  be  mastered  first,  before  the  student  can  take  up 
the  more  advanced.  In  medicine,  for  instance,  he  can- 
not understand  pathology,  without  having  studied 
anatomy  and  physiology.  So  in  chemistry,  a  knowl- 
edge of  general  organic  and  inorganic  chemistry  is 
required  before  passing  to  analysis.  In  law,  the  rou- 
tine is  to  take  up  the  Institutes  and  History  of  Roman 
Legislation  (Aeussere  Rechtsgeschichte],  then  the  Pan- 
dects and  Doctrine  of  Inheritance,  then  Criminal  and 
Ecclesiastical  Law,  before  venturing  upon  such  mat- 
ters as  the  Practica  (practical  exercises)  and  theories 
of  Procedure.  But  this  is  something  altogether  diff- 
erent from  a  curriculum  in  which  mathematics,  clas- 
sics, metaphysics,  history,  and  the  natural  sciences  are 
pursued  simultaneously.  It  is  nothing  more  or  less 
than  conformity  to  the  organic  law  of  development. 
Furthermore,  it  is  not  formally  obligatory  upon  the 
student,  but  left  to  his  own  good  sense.  I  do  not  say 
j:hat  a  professor  of  pathology  or  of  chemistry  would 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  47 

not  refuse  to  admit  into  his  clinique  or  his  analytical 
laboratory  a  student  who  had  neglected  to  qualify 
himself  in  anatomy  or  in  general  chemistry.  In  all 
probability  the  professor  would,  and  very  properly. 
But  in  the  philosophical  and  legal  faculties,  with 
which  I  am  more  familiar,  I  can  assert  confidently  that 
the  utmost  freedom  is  allowed.  One  can  "hear"  the 
Pandects  before  the  Institutes,  Criminal  Law  before 
the  Law  of  Inheritance,  as  I  myself  have  done.  Stu- 
dents generally  follow  a  certain  routine,  but  not  so 
much  because  it  is  octroye^  as  because  they  find  it  to  be 
the  easiest  and' best  way  to  a  right  understanding  of 
the  subject. 

Not  having  any  inspirations  after  medical,  theologi- 
cal, or  legal  attainments  at  that  time,  in  fact  not  having 
any  plan  of  study  at  all  beyond  mastering  the  lan- 
guage and  literature,  I  had  myself  entered  in  the  phil- 
osophical faculty,  as  being  the  one  that  offered  the 
widest  range  of  lectures  from  which  to  select.  Under 
the  pilotage  of  H — ,  a  countryman  who  had  been  pur- 
suing classical  studies  for  two  years,  I  went  the  rounds 
of  what  the  German  students  call  hospitiren,  i.  e.,  drop- 
ping into  a  lecture  to  see  how  you  like  the  lecturer. 
This  practice  prevails  to  a  considerable  extent  at  the 
university,  at  least  at  the  beginning  of  a  semester.  It 
is  practically  the  only  way  that  newly  matriculated 
students  have  of  deciding  between  rival  lecturers  or  of 
selecting  some  lecture  that  is  not  embraced  in  the 
ordinary  routine  of  study.  On  this,  as  on  so  many 


48  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

points,  the  Germans  display  a  great  deal  of  practical 
sense.  The  student  is  free  to  roam  about  for  two  or 
three  weeks,  but  at  the  end  of  that  time  it  is  expected 
of  him  that  he  come  to  a  decision  and  settle  down 
either  to  steady  work  or  to  steady  idleness.  Conse- 
quently, if  you  should  attend  regularly  a  certain  course 
of  lectures,  occupying  a  seat  and  taking  notes,  with- 
out presenting  your  Anmeldungsbuch  to  the  professor, 
you  would  probably  be  waited  upon  by  the  beadle,  at 
your  room,  and  interrogated  as  to  your  studies,  what 
you  had  paid  for,  what  you  intended  to  pay  for,  and 
the  like.  In  other  words,  your  freedom  of  hospitiren 
will  not  be  suffered  to  amount  to  unmistakable 
"sponging." 

I  availed  myself  pretty  thoroughly  of  the  hospitiren- 
privilege,  attending  one  or  two  lectures  in  every 
course  delivered  upon  subjects  connected  in  any  way 
with  letters.  The  philosophical  faculty  covers  every 
thing  that  is  not  law,  medicine,  or  theology.  It 
embraces  consequently  the  exact  sciences,  mathema- 
tics, physics,  chemistry,  and  the  like,  the  descriptive 
sciences,  botany,  physiology,  geology,  the  historical 
sciences,  political  history,  political  economy,  finance, 
the  humanities,  that  is,  Latin  and  Greek,  Alterthums- 
wissenschaft,  Oriental  and  general  philology,  and  the 
modern  languages,  as  they  are  taught  philologically 
and  critically.  The  field,  therefore,  is  immense,  and 
often  overlaps  those  of  the  other  faculties.  Thus  the 
medical  student,  being  held  to  a  general  knowledge 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  49 

of  chemistry,  botany,  and  comparative  physiology 
and  anatomy,  has  to  pass  at  least  three  semesters 
under  the  philosophical  faculty,  although  enrolled  in 
the  medical.  Hebrew,  as  a  study  in  linguistics,  is  not 
regarded  as  a  part  of  theology  proper,  but  the  profes- 
sor of  Hebrew  is  a  member  of  the  philosophical 
faculty.  Candidates  for  orders,  by  the  way,  are 
obliged  to  master  the  outlines  of  Hebrew  grammar 
at  the  gymnasium,  before  entering  the  university.  On 
the  other  hand,  students  who  obtain  the  degree  of 
Ph.  D.  for  studies  in  history  and  political  economy 
are  examined  in  certain  legal  topics,  viz. :  Institutes, 
romische  Rechtsgechichte,  and  deutsche  Rechts-und  Verfass- 
ungsgeschichtc,  that  is,  the  history  of  Roman  legisla- 
tion and  constitutional  forms  in  Germany.  This 
would  cover  nearly  two  semesters  in  the  legal  faculty. 
The  German  theory  is  that  no  one  is  qualified  to 
become  an  historian  or  an  office-holder  of  the  higher 
grades,  who  has  not  an  insight  at  least  into  the  ele- 
ments of  jurisprudence. 

In  making  my  selection  of  lectures,  I  was  deter- 
mined by  one  simple  consideration :  which  of  the 
many  distinguished  men  whom  I  heard  would  be  likely 
to  teach  me  the  most  German.  I  decided  upon  two, 
about  as  opposite  in  manner  and  substance  as  can 
well  be  imagined :  Ernst  Curtius,  now  professor  in 
Berlin,  who  lectured  on  Greek  Art,  and  Ritter,  since 
deceased,  who  lectured  on  the  History  of  Modern 
Philosophy.  Curtius,  then  a  comparatively  young 
5 


50  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

man,  had  an  energetic  and  rapid,  but  very  distinct 
enunciation.  As  his  lectures  were  to  a  large  extent 
the  analysis  and  criticism  of  the  remains  of  Greek 
art,  such  as  temples,  friezes,  statues,  intaglios,  and  the 
like,  I  judged  that  the  subject  itself  would  not  only  be 
interesting  and  profitable,  but  that  the  prints  which 
were  passed  around  the  class  during  the  lecture  would 
give  me  at  least  a  visible  image  of  what  the  lecturer 
was  speaking  about.  I  made  no  attempt  to  take  notes. 
In  fact,  had  I  been  even  a  much  better  German  scholar 
than  I  was,  I  could  not  have  written  fast  enough.  The 
auditors  generally  seemed  to  listen  rather  than  to 
write,  and  to  use  their  pens  only  for  noting  down 
leading  principles  and  important  facts.  I  contented 
myself  with  jotting  down  now  and  then  a  word  or  a 
phrase  that  I  could  arrest  in  the  general  flow  of  the 
language,  with  a  view  to  studying  over  it  at  my 
rooms.  The  chief  good  that  the  lectures  of  Professor 
Curtius  did  me  was  to  train  my  ear  day  by  day  to  the 
flow  of  very  rapid  and  very  elegant  German.  This 
point,  it  seems  to  me,  has  not  been  sufficiently  attended 
to.  It  is  one  thing  to  read  a  work  in  the  privacy  and 
quiet  of  your  own  room,  but  it  is  quite  another  to 
listen  for  an  hour  to  the  same  author  as  the  words 
come  fast  and  warm  from  his  lips.  Even  if  you  do 
not  catch  at  first  more  than  a  thought  or  two  here  and 
there,  and  the  body  of  the  discourse  sounds  as  the 
tangled  maze  of  a  symphony  does  to  the  uninitiated 
in  music,  still  you  are  training  your  perceptive  facul- 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  5 1 

ties  far  more  than  you  are  apt  to  suspect.  Both  ear 
and  brain  are  on  the  stretch,  you  put  forth  your  best 
efforts  to  seize  and  hold  the  fleeting  breath  ;  in  short, 
you  work  under  pressure,  whereas  in  your  room  you 
are  apt  to  dilly-dally  over  your  books,  to  fall  asleep,  as 
it  were,  for  want  of  outside  stimulus.  Hearing,  of 
course,  does  not  exclude  reading ;  both  are  necessary, 
and  the  one  supplements  the  other.  But  I  take  the 
liberty  of  calling  especial  attention  to  the  importance 
of  hearing  German  well  delivered,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  only  too  many  English  and  Americans  neglect 
this  element  of  training. 

Professor  Ritter  was,  as  I  have  intimated,  the  exact 
opposite  of  his  colleague.  He  spoke  very  slowly  and 
deliberately,  from  full  notes,  with  a  mild,  almost  dron- 
ing intonation,  so  that  it  was  possible,  even  for  me,  to 
write  down  every  word.  In  his  lectures,  then,  I  used 
my  pen  industriously,  and  succeeded  in  making  an  ex- 
act reproduction  of  the  professor's  text.  This  it  was 
my  practice  to  take  to  my  room  immediately  after  the 
'lecture  hour,  which  was  from  four  to  five  in  the  after- 
noon, spending  the  interval  to  tea  time  in  going  over 
it  again,  grammar  and  dictionary  in  hand,  and  writing 
the  translations  of  words  and  phrases  on  the  margin 
and  between  the  lines.  The  reader  may  perhaps  doubt 
the  possibility  of  one's  writing  down  correctly  expres- 
sions which  he  does  not  understand  at  the  time.  But 
in  a  language  where  the  pronunciation  conforms  so 
closely  to  the  spelling,  and  the  words  are  run  together 


52  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

so  little,  as  is  the  case  in  German,  the  feat  is  not  at  all 
difficult,  provided  the  lecturer  reads  slowly  enough  to 
let  each  word  strike  the  ear  as  a  well  rounded  unit. 
Besides,  German  is  emphatically  a  language  of  termi- 
nations and  prefixes,  which  give  the  ear  a  chance  to 
rest  and  the  pen  a  chance  to  abbreviate.  It  will  suf- 
fice to  call  the  reader's  attention  to  such  syllables  as 
«",  heit,  keit,  schaft,  ung,  niss,  ling,  thum,  ig,  lick,  isch,  los, 
fach,  fait,  sam,  bar,  and  the  entire  group  of  the  so 
called  separable  and  inseparable  prefixes.  I  can  assure 
the  reader  that  during  the  first  two  months  certainly 
I  wrote  down,  from  dictation  as  it  were,  between  one 
and  two  hundred  pages  by  mere  sound,  generally  un- 
able to  recognize  the  connection  between  two  succes- 
sive words,  unless  they  happened  to  stand  in  the 
simplest  grammatical  relation,  and  nearly  always  un- 
able to  follow  the  transition  from  sentence  to  sentence. 
My  feelings  during  the  process  were  somewhat  akin, 
I  suppose,  to  those  of  the  compositor  who  sets  up 
"  copy  "  in  a  foreign  language. 

Besides  a  general  knowledge  of  German,  I  made 
one  valuable  acquisition  through  Professor  Ritter's 
lectures,  to  wit,  an  acquaintance  with  the  vocabulary 
of  abstract  and  philosophical  terms.  This,  it  is  well 
known,  is  the  most  difficult  part  of  the  language. 
Our  abstract  terms  are  taken  from  ttye  Latin  and 
Greek,  as  they  are  in  French,  so  that  the  reader  who 
is  familiar  with  their  meaning'  in  one  language  can 
easily  recognize  them  in  the  other.  All  that  an 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  5  3 

Englishman  or  an  American  needs  to  prepare  himself 
for  reading  a  French  treatise  on  art,  or  science,  or  his- 
tory is  a  slight  knowledge  of  the  pronouns  and  irreg- 
ular verbs.  It  is  only  where  concrete  terms  come  in 
question,  names  of  objects  and  things,  such  as  bread, 
house,  dog  and  the  like,  that  the  two  languages  diverge. 
These  concrete  terms  in  German  coincide  generally 
with  the  English.  But  the  abstract  terms  have  been 
developed  by  means  of  suffixes  and  prefixes  from 
German  root-forms,  and  cannot  be  comprehended 
without  an  insight  into  the  genius  of  the  language. 
I  mean  such  words  as  Einbildung  imagination,  Gedacht- 
niss  memory,  Vernunft  reason,  Geschichte  history, 
Begriff  conception.  Furthermore,  the  German  abstract 
terms  are  not  always  the  exact  equivalents  of  the 
English  words  employed  to  translate  them  in  the  dic- 
tionary. Thus  the  German  word  Urtheil,  given  in  the 
vocabularies  as  denoting  judgment,  covers  only  that 
word  as  it  may  be  used  in  the  sense  of  opinion,  the 
product  of  the  faculty  of  judging ;  the  faculty  itself 
is  designated  by  Urtheilskraft.  This  is  only  one  ex- 
ample out  of  thousands.  The  beginner  will  find 
himself  tripped  up  continually  by  these  abstract  terms ; 
they  are  hard  to  understand  and  harder  still  to  remem- 
ber and  apply.  They  really  represent  more  of  the 
genius  of  the  language  than  any  mere  inflectional  or 
syntactic  peculiarities.  These  latter  will  become  of 
themselves  a  matter  of  routine,  but  the  derivation  of 
words,  especially  of  abstract  terms,  calls  for  the  most 


54  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

delicate  appreciation  of  the  formative,  what  the  Ger- 
mans call  the  building  elements  of  the  language.  As 
a  means  of  acquiring  this  appreciation,  I  can  heartily 
recommend  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  history  of 
philosophy.  A  course  upon  pure  speculative  phil- 
osophy would  be  altogether  too  difficult  for  the 
beginner.  But  a  course  something  like  the  one 
delivered  by  Professor  Ritter,  beginning  with  Roger 
Bacon  and  coining  down  to  Kant  and  Hegel,  inter- 
spersed with  short,  easy  biographical  and  historical 
notices,  seems  to  me  to  blend  sufficiently  the  abstract 
and  the  concrete.  The  hearer  gets  the  proper  play  of 
abstract  terms,  while  the  very  effort  of  writing  them 
down  one  by  one  in  ignorance  of  their  meaning,  or  at 
least  the  exact  shade  of  meaning,  and  afterward 
patiently  educing  the  sense  with  the  help  of  his  dic- 
tionary or  of  his  teacher,  fixes  them  firmly  in  the 
memory.  At  all  events,  the  lecturer  should  speak 
slowly  and  with  the  clearest  articulation. 

The  lecture-system  of  Germany  has  been  extolled 
and  decried  with  equal  injustice.  Like  every  oth^r 
system  of  man's  invention,  it  is  confessedly  imperfect. 
One  who  attends  lectures  is  not  necessarily  on  the 
road  to  knowledge,  one  who  lectures  is  not  necessarily 
wiser  or  more  interesting  than  a  printed  book.  But 
taken  all  in  all,  I  think  that  it  works  well.  It  gives 
the  lecturer  an  opportunity  of  revising  his  own 
studies  and  incorporating  fresh  knowledge ;  every 
course  of  lectures  can  be  made  as  it  were  a  new 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  55 

edition,  which  is  not  usually  practicable  with  a 
printed  book.  It  gives  the  hearer  the  ripest  fruits 
of  research  direct  from  the  investigator  himself,  it 
quickens  the  faculties  of  apprehension  and  stimulates 
subsequent  study  and  collateral  reading.  Say  what 
they  will,  the  devotees  of  the  Socratic  method  will 
never  succeed  in  arguing  the  personal  element  in  the 
lecture-system  out  of  existence.  It  is  well  enough  to 
be  made  to  feel  that  you  are  wrong,  but  it  is  a  higher 
gain  to  be  made  to  feel  that  some  one  else  is  right, 
and  that  you  are  catching  from  his  lips  the  thoughts 
over  which  he  has  spent  days  and  years  of  patient 
toil. 

There  are  as  many  different  styles  of  lecturing  in 
Germany  as  there  are  different  professors.  They  can 
all  be  reduced,  however,  under  three  general  cate- 
gories :  the  system  of  dictating  everything,  the  sys- 
tem of  dictating  part  and  explaining  part,  the  system 
of  rapid  delivery.  By  the  first  is  meant  that  plan 
in  pursuance  of  which  the  professor  reads  off  the 
entire  lecture  at  a  uniform  rate  of  speed,  slow  enough 
to  allow  his  hearers,  unless  they  should  be  very 
clumsy  writers,  to  take  down  every  or  nearly  every 
word.  Under  the  second  system,  the  professor  dic- 
tates a  paragraph  at  a  time,  reading  so  slowly  that  his 
hearers  cannot  help  catching  it,  and  even  pausing  and 
repeating,  if  he  should  see  that  any  one  in  the  audi- 
ence is  at  fault,  and  then  proceeds  to  comment  rapidly 
and  in  a  colloquial  tone  upon  what  has  just  been  die- 


56  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

tated.  Under  the  third  system,  that  of  rapid  delivery, 
the  instructor  speaks  after  the  fashion  of  our  public 
lecturers,  aiming  more  to  impress  his  students,  to  arouse 
and  stimulate  them,  than  to  give  them  something  that 
they  can  carry  home  "black  on  white."  Many  of  the 
more  popular  lecturers  on  political  "history,  or  on  topics 
connected  with  literary  history  are  delivered  in  this  style, 
especially  where  the  professor  can  take  for  granted  that 
his  hearers  have  some  previous  knowledge,  so  that  his 
remarks  are  as  it  were  the  novel  presentment  of  an  old 
theme.  But  in  general  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that 
wherever  exact,  positive  information  is  to  be  conveyed, 
as  for  instance  in  law,  or  in  the  descriptive  and  exact 
sciences,  there  the  only  systems  followed  are  the  first  and 
the  second. 

Lectures  are  usually  delivered  with  what  is  called  tern- 
pus,  which  is  emphatically  not  "on  time."  Tempus,  or 
the  "  academic  quarter,"  as  it  is  otherwise  styled,  denotes 
that  a  lecture  announced,  e.  g.,  for  ten  o'clock,  is  not 
begun  until  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  after  the  hour.  The 
reason  for  this  apparent  procrastination  is  a  practical 
one.  It  not  unfrequently  happens  that  the  lecturer,  to 
save  the  time  and  trouble  of  going  to  and  fro  between  his 
home  and  the  Collegten-haus,  will  secure  t^o  successive 
hours  for  two  lectures.  Still,  it  is  not  desirable  to  read 
one  hundred  and  twenty  minutes  on  a  stretch;  the 
pause,  then,  is  very  opportune,  giving  the  lecturer  a 
chance  to  rest  his  voice.  But  the  chief  utility  of  the 
"  academlj:  quarter  "  is  for  the  students  themselves.  As 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  5  7 

many  of  them  have  three  or  four  lectures  in  succession, 
perhaps  in  different  buildings,  the  pause  enables  them  to 
make  the  transition  without  inconvenience.  Besides,  it  is 
really  a  blessing  in  disguise  to  be  able  to  idle  ten  minutes 
between  each  two  hours.  One  who  knows  by  actual 
trial  what  it  is  to  attend  lectures  every  day  in  the  week, 
say  from  nine  o'clock  to  one,  or  even  from  eight  to  one, 
as  I  was  circumstanced  on  the  Saturdays  of  my  last 
winter  semester  (1863-1864),  will  appreciate  the  relief 
afforded  by  such  brief  respites.  To  fingers  grown  stiff 
and  numb  from  constant  writing,  to  brains  become  hot 
and  confused,  the  "  quarter  "  comes  as  a  positive  boon ; 
you  put  on  your  hat  and  hasten  into  the  open  air  for  a 
short  stroll,  to  meet  your  friends  and  acquaintances  and 
have  a  little  chat  about  every-day  matters.  Still,  not- 
withstanding all  its  advantages,  the  academic  quarter  is 
not  infrequently  reduced  to  very  narrow  limits.  The  Pan- 
dects are  considered  the  "  heaviest "  lecture  in  the  legal 
faculty,  that  is  to  say,  they  never  occupy  less  than  twelve 
hours  a  week  through  the  winter  semester.  Mommsen,* 
with  whom  I  heard  them  in  Gottingen,  began  at  five 
minutes  past  nine,  read  without  interruption  until  ten 
minutes  past  ten,  then  made  a  pause  of  five  minutes  only, 
and  contini^d  until  five  or  ten  minutes  past  eleven.  As 
he  read  rapidly,  it  was  all  that  one  could  do  to  keep  up 
with  him.  From  the  moment  he  entered  the  room  until 
he  rose  from  his  desk  to  leave,  there  was  not  a  pause, 

*  A  cousin  of  the  celebrated  historian  in  Berlin. 


58  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

every  pen  traveled  over  the  paper  in  feverish  haste.  But 
the  worst  "  grind  "  was  at  Heidelberg,  under  Vangerow, 
since  deceased.  This  celebrated  lecturer  was  in  the 
habit  of  reading  —  also  on  the  Pandects  —  from  nine  to 
half  past  ten,  then  making  a  pause  of  fifteen  minutes,  and 
reading  on  until  one  o'clock,  and  even  later. 

Every  lecture  is  opened  with  the  stereotyped  formula, 
Meine  Herren  (Gentlemen)  !  The  professors  have  their 
private  meeting-room,  from  which  they  proceed  to  the 
lecture-room.  In  my  day,  there  was  the  utmost  license  at 
Gottingen  with  regard  to  smoking.  The  students  smoked 
on  the  stairs  and  in  the  entries  of  the  Cottegien-haus  at 
all  times,  and  even  in  the  lecture-rooms  themselves 
until  the  entrance  of  the  professor.  In  Berlin,  the  rule 
was  different ;  smoking  was  not  permitted  any  where 
within  the  University  buildings. 

As  a  rule,  a  university  lecture  is  a  simple,  straightfor- 
ward enunciation  of  fact  or  opinion,  without  any  attempt 
at  brilliancy  of  style.  You  are  seated  with  a  dozen  or 
two  or  three  dozen  other  young  men  like  yourself,  smok- 
ing, perhaps,  and  chatting  with  your  neighbor.  The 
bench  on  which  you  sit  is  hard  and  uncomfortable,,the 
elevated  bench  before  you  is  inscribed  with  all  sorts  of 
devices  and  names,  the  legacy  of  former  generations. 
Your  pen,  ink  and  paper  are  spread  out  before  you.  The 
door  opens  softly,. the  form  of  the  lecturer  moves  quietly 
across  the  room  and  ascends  the  rostrum.  Without  pre- 
amble, without  prelude,  the  hour's  work  begins.  Meine 
Herren —  Thomas  von  Aquina  sah  in  der  vernunftigen 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  5 9 

Seek  den  Kbchsten  Grad  der  weltlichen  Dinge  (Thomas 
Aquinas  regarded  the  rational  soul  as  the  climax  of  things 
earthly).  The  lecturer  has  simply  resumed  where  he  had 
broken  off  the  day  before.  I  have  listened  to  lectures  by 
many  different  professors  in  different  universities,  but  I 
can  not  truthfully  say  that  I  have  ever  heard  one  that 
could  be  called  brilliant.  The  aim  of  a  German  profes- 
sor is  not  so  much  to  arouse  or  interest  or  even  persuade 
his  hearers,  as  to  teach  them.  The  substance  of  his  dis- 
course is  the  unfolding  of  truth,  grave,  solid  truth.  The 
utmost  that  he  permits  himself  is  an  occasional  touch  of 
humor,  when  the  subject  will  bear  it.  Thus,  Zachariae, 
in  his  lectures  on  Criminal  Law,  was  rather  fond  of  show- 
ing up  certain  infractions  of  the  criminal  code  in  their 
ludicrous  aspects,  and  expatiating  upon  the  comically 
quaint  nomenclature  of  the  Carolina,  or  Code  of  Crimi- 
nal Procedure  enacted  by  Charles  V.  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  One  phrase  in  particular  he  never  grew  weary 
of  rolling  out  with  gusto :  Idem,  so  ein  Weibsbild. 
Gneist,  in  Berlin,  lectured  to  his  students  about  as  a  New 
York  lawyer  argues  a  motion  before  a  judge  with  whom 
he  is  on  easy  terms,  feeling  confident  that  he  has  the 
court  already  on  his  side.  Mommsen  was  always  intensely 
earnest,  speaking  energetically  and  almost  sharply  at 
times,  in  his  anxiety  to  impress  his  meaning  upon  his 
hearers.  But  by  far  the  ablest  lecture  that  I  have  ever 
heard,  in  Germany  or  at  home,  was  one  delivered  by 
Vangerow.  Happening  to  be  in  Heidelberg  on  a  visit  in 
October,  1864,  I  profited  by  the  occasion  to  hospitiren 


60  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

with  the  then  most  prominent  jurist  in  Germany.  The 
subject  was  thoroughly  familiar  to  me,  as  I  was  at  the 
time  in  full  preparation  for  my  examination  at  Gb'ttingen, 
which  came  off  a  few  weeks  later.  The  auditorium  was 
crowded, —  there  could  not  have  been  much  less  than 
two  hundred  students  present, —  but  the  silence  and 
attention  were  profound.  Seated  on  a  small  raised  plat- 
form near  the  center  of  the  room,  the  lecturer  spoke  for 
an  hour  and  a  half  in  an  easy,  clear,  sustained  voice, 
without  pause  and  without  break,  on  one  of  the  most 
complicated  points  in  Roman  Law.  He  had  no  notes, 
not  even  a  schedule,  only  a  slip  of  paper,  on  which  were 
written  one  or  two  references  to  passages  to  be  cited  from 
the  Digest ;  yet  the  ideas  and  words  came  forth  as  clear 
and  logical  and  well  placed  as  if  the  lecturer  were  read- 
ing from  a  printed  book.  The  subject  was  one  which 
the  German  spirit  delights  to  develop  after  the  I,  A,  i,  a 

a,  ft.  y style,  in  all  sorts  of  main  and  subsidiary 

paragraphs,  with  minor  and  modifying  clauses,  excep- 
tions, qualifications,  and  reservations,  references  to  foot 
notes,  and  the  like.  But  the  lecturer  had  such  an  insight 
into  and  such  a  grasp  of  his  subject  that  "his  discourse 
seemed  to  be  nothing  less  than  the  easy,  spontaneous 
process  of  organic  evolution  ;  it  seemed  to  grow  of  itself 
out  of  his  brain.  There  was  no  brilliancy,  no  flight  of 
eloquence,  no  outburst  of  humor  or  sarcasm;  the  lec- 
ture would  scarcely  have  been  intelligible  to  one  not 
familiar  with  the  study.  But  it  was  a  masterly  didactic 
statement  of  the  clear,  crystalline  truths  of  the  law,  intro- 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  6 1 

ducing  nothing  superfluous,  omitting  nothing  necessary, 
and  putting  everything  in  the  right  place.  Only  the  best 
arguments  of  men  like  Webster  and  O'Conor  could  equal 
it  for  sustained  power  and  absolute  logical  coherency.  I 
heard  from  Heidelberg  students  that  Vangerow  lectured 
in  this  fashion  from  three  to  four  hours  daily  through  the 
winter,  and  from  two  to  three  hours  through  the  summer 
term.  If  we  add  to  this  his  duties  as  dean  of  the  legal 
faculty  and  president  of  the  Collegium  for  government 
references,  his  unremitting  activity  as  an  author,  and  —  I 
regret  to  say — domestic  troubles  of  the  most  painful 
kind,  we  need  not  wonder  that  one  of  such  prodigious 
powers  should  sink  into  the  grave  while  still  in  the  prime 
of  life. 

The  paper  used  for  taking  notes  is  of  a  peculiar  kind. 
A  German  student  rarely  if  ever  has  what  we  call  a  note- 
book or  a  copy-book.  He  uses  the  so  called  Pandecten 
or  Collegienpapier^  plain,  white  writing-paper,  unruled ; 
the  page  varies  in  size,  but  is  generally  what  book- 
publishers  designate  as  lexicon-octavo  untrimmed.  Six 
or  eight  sheets  (twelve  or  sixteen  pages)  are  stitched 
together  at  the  back,  making  a  Heft.  The  Heft,  before 
it  is  sold,  is  put  under  a  press  of  which  the  face  is  smaller 
than  the  face  of  the  page.  This  blocks  out  by  indentation 
a  sort  of  inner  page,  leaving  a  wide  margin.  The  inner 
page  alone  is  used  for  writing  in  the  lecture-hour ;  the 
margin  is  reserved  for  subsequent  corrections  and  addi- 
tions. At  the  end  of  the  semester,  the  Hefte  of  any  one 

course  can  be  bound  up  in  a  volume  for  preservation. 
6 


62  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

The  advantages  of  this  paper  are  that  it  enables  the 
student  to  dispense  with  an  armful  qf  cumbersome  note- 
books—  he  has  only  to  carry  as  many  Hefte  at  a  time  as 
he  has  separate  lectures  to  attend  —  and  prevents  the 
waste  of  paper.  In  buying  a  note-book,  the  student 
runs  the  risk  of  getting  one  either  too  small  or  too  large ; 
but  with  the  Pandectenpapier,  he  has  only  to  add  a 
Heft  from  time  to  time,  and  he  can  also  intercalate  as 
long  as  the  Hefte  are  unbound.  It  has  always  been 
a  matter  of  surprise  to  me  that  the  Pandectenpapier  has 
not  been  introduced  into  our  American  colleges.  It  is 
by  far  the  most  practical  method  of  taking  notes.  The 
Hefte  are  carried  in  a  small  black  leather  portfolio 
(Mappe),  just  large  enough  to  hold  three  or  four  at  a 
time,  and  flexible  enough  to  be  rolled  up  and  carried 
conveniently  under  the  arm.  The  notes  are  always 
written  in  ink.  The  inkstand  generally  used  is  not  flat- 
bottomed,  as  with  us,  but  terminates  in  a  sharp  point  of 
iron,  which  can  be  thrust  into  the  desk.  When  carried 
in  the  pocket,  the  point  is  protected  by  a  capsule  of  horn 
that  screws  over  it.  A  stranger  visiting  a  university 
lecture-room  for  the  first  time  would  be  puzzled  to 
account  for  the  innumerable  round  holes  punched  in 
the  desks ;  a  naturalist  might  call  them  fossil  foot-prints 
of  the  Bubo  maximus. 

The  conduct  of  the  students  during  the  lecture-hour 
is  propriety  itself.  One  might  attend  hundreds  of  lec- 
tures in  different  universities,  without  witnessing  any 
disorder  or  whispering.  The  first  attempt  to  create 


MA  TRICULA  TION  AND  LECTURES.  63 

such  disturbances  as  disgrace  the  halls  of  our  colleges 
would  be  punished  by  the  summary  expulsion  of  all  the 
offenders.  To  an  American  faculty,  the  discipline  in  the 
German  universities  will  appear  lax  in  more  than  one 
respect.  There  are  no  chapel-services,  no  marks,  no 
tutorial  supervision.  The  student  is  free  to  live  where  i 
and  as  he  pleases,  his  movements  are  unfettered.  But 
whatever  else  the  university  may  wink  at,  it  never  tole- 
rates disrespect  and  disorder  in  the  lecture-room.  The 
student  is  treated  as  a  man  having  a  sense  of  propriety 
and  duty.  If  he  does  not  like  a  particular  professor,  he 
can  hear  another ;  if  he  does  not  like  a  particular  uni- 
versity, he  can  go  elsewhere.  If  he  does  not  feel  disposed 
to  attend  on  a  particular  day,  he  can  stay  away.  But  if 
he  attends,  he  is  expected  to  conduct  himself  as  in  all 
respects  a  man.  There  have  been,  I  admit,  distuibances 
in  some  of  the  German  universities.  But  they  were  not 
mere  boyish  freaks,  but  political  demonstrations  insti- 
tuted for  some  special  purpose  and  usually  backed  up  by 
a  clique  in  the  faculty  itself  and  by  outside  sympathy. 
The  most  notable  instances  were  the  Anti-German, 
Bohemian  demonstrations  at  Prague,  ten  or  fifteen  years 
ago,  which  brought  about  the  appointment  of  two  sets  of 
professors  in  all  the  departments,  one  for  the  German, 
the  other  for  the  Czechish  students. 

The  German  student,  however,  has  one  privilege  which 
the  American  has  not;  he  can  manifest  his  wishes  by 
scraping  his  feet  on  the  floor.  If  a  professor  lectures 
too  fast,  or  fails  to  explain  a  point  to  the  complete  satis- 


64  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

faction  of  his  hearers,  or  if  he  lectures  over  the  hour, 
instantly  you  will  hear  three  or  four  pairs  of  shoes  at 
work.  This  hint  is  always  taken  by  the  professor  in 
good  part.  With  regard  to  lecturing  over  the  hour,  the 
practice  varies.  Where  the  students  know  that  the 
course  is  a  heavy  one,  in  which  the  professor  has  need 
of  all  the  time  he  can  get,  they  are  not  so  apt  to  inter- 
rupt, unless  the  time  of  "grace"  should  exceed  five 
minutes.  More  than  once  I  have  heard  Mommsen  say : 
"  Gentlemen,  excuse  me  for  detaining  you  one  moment 
longer,  but  I  must  finish  this  subject  to-day."  But  where 
the  professor  is  merely  indulging  in  explanatory  "  talk," 
he  is  usually  cut  short  without  much  grace. 

The  lecture-rooms,  in  their  general  appearance,  are 
unattractive,  not  to  say  cheerless.  Even  in  Berlin  and 
Leipsic,  they  are  much  inferior  to  our  recently  con- 
structed halls,  while  in  places  like  Halle,  Tubingen,  Mar- 
burg—  and  Gottingen  ten  years  ago  —  the  want  of  ven- 
tilation is  shocking.  Still,  one  soon  becomes  used  to  the 
minor  discomforts  of  dingy  windows,  hard  benches,  and 
close  air,  and  learns  to  take  comfort  in  the  world  of 
ideas. 


o 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Auf  der  Mensur. 

NE  day  T ,  of  New  York,  dropped  into  my 

room  before  dinner,  saying:  Don't  you  wish  to 
see  a  first-class  Mensur  this  afternoon  ?  As  a  graduate 
of  a  respectable  American  college,  there  was  the  pre- 
sumption that  I  must  recognize  the  obvious  connection 
between  Mensur  and  mensuration ;  yet  my  rushlight  of 
mathematical  experience  was  insufficient  to  illuminate 
the  German  term,  which,  it  is  perhaps  needless  to  state, 
had  not  come  up  in  the  round  of  my  grammatical  stu- 
dies. Did  it  mean  a  surveying  party,  or  a  mathematical 
orgie,  a  concourse  of  "  delicious  triangles  ?  "  I  had  to 
call  upon  my  better  initiated  countryman  for  an  explana- 
tion, and  learned  that  Mensur  was  the  student-word  for 
the  dueling  ground,  that  is  to  say,  the  area  measured  off, 
and  hence  —  by  extension  —  for  the  duel  itself.  Natur- 
ally desirous  to  get  a  practical  insight  into  the  modus 
operandi  of  this  peculiar  act  of  student  life  in  Germany, 
concerning  which  I  had  heard  so  much,  I  accepted  the 

invitation  as  unceremoniously  as  it  was  given.     T 

himself  was  not  a  member  of  a  Corps  or  Verbindung,  but 
having  spent  three  or  four  semesters  in  Gottingen,  was 
on  terms  of  easy  acquaintance  with  many  corps-students. 
*6 


66  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

We   arranged   to   meet   in  his  room  immediately   after 

dinner,  when   I   should  be   presented  to  S ,  of  the 

"  Hanoverians,"  who  was  to  conduct  us  to  the  Mensur. 

So  T went  his  way  to  the  Laboratory,  and  I  resumed 

work  on  my  translations. 

From  the  windows  of  E 's  room,  which  faced  on  the 

street   leading   out   through   the   Geismar   Gate,   I   had 
watched  almost  every  other  day  students   in   numbers 
flocking  past  with  Schl  ger  and  gloves,  even  in  broad 
daylight,  and  learned  that  they  were  on  their  way  to  the 
dueling  ground.     The  openness  of  their  movements  sur- 
prised me,  as  I  had  seen  more  than  one  picture  of  the 
arrest  of  dueling  parties  by  University  beadles,  and  sup- 
posed, before  coming  to  Gottingen,  that  encounters  of 
the  kind  were  kept  as  secret  as  possible.     The  winter 
of  1 86 1-2  was  what  might  be  called  a  star-season.     There 
has  always  been  a  good  deal  of  fighting  in  Gottingen, 
perhaps  more  than  at  any  other  university  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  students.     But  this  my  first  winter  in 
the  place  was  a  remarkable  one.     There  was  an  unusual 
number  of  veterans,  big,  heavy,  scarred  fighting-cocks, 
among  all  the  corps,  and  especially  among  the  West- 
phalians.     The  chief  casus  belli,  however,  was  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  new  corps,  the  Normans,  by  some  new 
comers,  among  whom  were  two  brothers  from  Heidel- 
berg, named   Mendelssohn,  relatives,  I  believe,   of  the 
celebrated  composer.     The  bantling,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  had  to  undergo  a  baptism  of  "  blood  and  iron." 
The  rowing  at  one  time  was  prodigious.     Whenever  the 


A  UF  DER  MENSUR.  67 

Normans  returned  from  their  Kneipe  in  the  evening,  they 
were  beset  by  the  students  of  the  other  corps,  chaffed  and 
huffed,  and  challenged  right  and  left.  But  as  they  were 
all  fighting  men,  in  fact,  in  Western  parlance,  "  spoiling  for 
a  fight,"  this  was  no  great  hardship.  The  elder  Mendels- 
sohn was  their  leader,  their  Haupthahn,  and,  to  his  credit 
be  it  said,  performed  his.  duties  manfully.  After  fighting 
two  or  three  duels  a  week  throughout  the  winter,  and 
escaping  without  a  scratch,  he  got  the  consilium  abeundi 
from  the  University  Court  and  had  to  retire  to  the 
shades  of  private  life,  leaving  twenty  or  thirty  slight  "  un- 
pleasantnesses "  still  pending.  Others  of  the  Normans 
were  also  relegated,  and  the  corps  in  consequence  was 
broken  up.'  There  were  grounds  for  suspecting  that  it 
became  too  great  an  eye-sore  to  the  University  judge. 

But  all  through  the  winter  months  the  Paukerei  was 
kept  up,  and  one  could  see  dozens  of  students  going 
about  with  bandaged  cheeks  and  noses.  On  the  particu- 
lar day  of  which  I  now  write,  the  event  was  to  be  a  duel 

between  Mendelssohn  and  Von  H ,  the  leader  of  the 

Bremensians. 

At  two  o'clock  I  made  my  appearance  at  T.'s  room,  and 
found  him  and  his  friend  S.  quietly  discussing  coffee  and 
cigars  after  the  approved  German  fashion.  S.,  by  the 
way,  was  a  tall,  good-looking,  bespectacled  young  man, 
anything  but  a  "rower,"  to  judge  by  his  manners  and 
actions.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  him  by  the 
merest  chance  in  Vienna,  during  the  summer  of  1872, 


68  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

and  learned  that  he  had  become  a  manufacturer.     At  the 
university  he  was  a  student  of  chemistry. 

When  the  cigars  and  coffee  were  at  an  end,  we  strolled 
up  the  Kurze  Geismar  street  and  out  of  the  gate  along 
the  chaussee.  We  were  preceded  and  followed  by  other 
students  in  knots  of  three  or  four,  at  wide  intervals,  to 
avoid  the  appearance  of  a  crowd.  After  issuing  from 
the  gate,  I  observed  younger  students,  Fuchse,  stationed 
on  each  side  of  the  road  every  hundred  feet,  acting  as 
scouts  or  sentries  to  give  warning  in  case  of  the  approach 
of  a  Pedell*  or  other  suspicious  looking  person.  Having 
S.  as  our  escort,  we  passed  without  exciting  comment. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances,  a  duel  is,  for  the  outside 
world,  a  private  affair ;  no  one  but  the  immediate  backers 
of  the  duelists  is  permitted  to  attend.  But  a  duel  fought 
under  the  sanction  of  the  S.  C,  the  Senioren  Convent,  /.  <?., 
under  the  auspices  of  the  corps  as  a  body,  and  according 
to  their  rules,  and  upon  the  corps  Mensur^  is  open  to  all 
corps-students,  and  to  the  friends  and  acquaintances 
whom  they  may  bring  with  them.  The  corps  resemble, 
in  more  than  one  respect,  the  secret  societies  of  our 
American  colleges.  Not  that  there  is  any  element  of 
secrecy  about  them;  on  the  contrary,  their  statutes  of 
organization  and  by-laws  must  be  submitted  for  the 
approval  of  the  university,  and  their  meeting-rooms, 
Kncipcn,  are  not  screened  from  the  public  gaze.  Out- 
siders are  often  invited  to  their  reunions,  which  are 

*  The  orthodox  student  term  for  the  beadle  is  poodle. 


A  UF  DER  MENSUR.  69 

nothing  more  than  social  gatherings  held  twice  a  week, 
generally  on  Wednesday  and  Saturday  evening.  The 
Corps-kneipe  is  merely  a  sort  of  club-room,  and  not  a 
"  lodge."  Furthermore,  a  corps  has  no  existence  outside 
of  its  own  university ;  it  has  no  affiliations,  no  "  chap- 
ters." There  exists,  however,  a  so-called  Cartel-verbindung 
between  corps  of  different  universities,  so  that  a  member 
of  the  Heidelberg  Vandals,  for  instance,  in  coming  to 
Gottingen,  becomes  the  Conkneipant  without  further  cere- 
mony of  the  Gottingen  Bremensians,  but  continues  to 
wear  his  colors  as  a  Vandal.  Each  corps  regulates  its  • 
own  affairs ;  all  general  rules  are  drawn  up  and  promul- 
gated by  the  Senioren  Convent,  or  heads  of  the  corps  of 
All  Germany,  who  meet  once  a  year  in  solemn  conclave. 
There  were,  and  still  are,  I  believe,  seven  corps  at  Got- 
tingen :  the  Bremensians,  Saxon-Borussians,  West- 
phalians,  Hanoverians,  Brunswickians,  Luneburgs  and 
Teutons.  These  names  have  lost  nearly  all  their  geo- 
graphical signification.  Each  corps  has  its  set  of  colors ; 
thus  the  Saxon-Borussians  wore  dark  blue,  white,  light 
blue,  and  the  Westphalians,  dark  green,  white,  light 
green,  etc. 

After  the  Corps  come  the  Burschenschaften  and  Verbin- 
dungen.  The  origin  of  the  Burschenschaften  is  to  me 
obscure ;  I  believe  that  they  were  at  one  time  identical 
with  the  Landsmannschaften,  started  as  a  political  club  in 
the  last  century  and  broken  up  by  governmental  inter- 
ference. The  Verbindungen  are  of  comparatively  recent 
origin ;  they  are  mere  social  clubs,  each  existing  by  and 


70  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

for  itself,  and  not  subject  to  rules  common  to  all.  More- 
over, many  of  them  are  professedly  hostile  to  dueling, 
and  aim  at  its  suppression.  Such  Verbindungen  at  Got- 
tingen  were  the  Hercynians  and  New-Hanoverians, 
irreverently  nicknamed  the  "  tea-boys."  The  corps-stu- 
dents, it  is  perhaps  superfluous  to  remark,  regard  them- 
selves as  the  students  by  eminence,  looking  down  upon 
the  others  and  lumping  them  under  the  convenient  desig- 
nation of  Wilden,  wild-men.  The  distinction  resembles 
that  which  exists  at  Yale,  for  instance,  between  "  society- 
men  "  and  "  neutrals."  The  corps-students  at  Gdttingen 
numbered  scarcely  more  than  one  hundred  and  thirty  in 
a  total  of  seven  hundred ;  but  being  well  organized,  and 
comprising  nearly  all  the  stirring,  aggressive  elements, 
they  shaped  things  pretty  much  to  suit  themselves.  It 
was  the  old  story  of  the  advantage  of  discipline  and 
organization  over  mere  numbers. 

Each  corps  has  its  own  Fecht-boden,  or  fencing-room, 
where  its  members  meet  every  day  for  practice  among 
themselves.  The  dueling  comes  off  on  the  Mensur, 
which  is  selected  by  agreement ;  it  is  generally  a  room  in 
some  tavern  outside  the  city,  and  is  changed  from  time 
to  time,  to  baffle  the  police.  If  a  Wilder  wishes  to  duel 
with  a  corps-student,  he  must  fight  on  the  Mensur  and 
according  to  the  rules  of  the  S.  C. ;  he  must  also  furnish 
his  own  seconds.  The  corps,  I  believe,  supplies  the  wea- 
pons. But,  as  an  outsider,  I  cannot  speak  on  these 
points  very  confidently. 

To  resume  the  narrative.     About  a  third  of  a  mile 


A  UP  DER  MENSUR.  7 1 

outside  the  town,  on  the  right  hand  of  the  chaussee, 
stands  the  well  known  tavern  and  concert-room  Zum 
deutschen  Hause.  By  the  side  of  it  is  a  smaller  tavern. 
Here  we  entered,  and,  passing  through  the  public  rooms 
below,  ascended  a  narrow  rickety  stairway  in  the  rear  to 
the  upper  story.  In  the  first  room  that  we  entered,  a 
small  one,  was  a  stand  holding  a  barrel  of  beer,  from 
which  one  or  two  waiters  were  busily  filling  Schoppen  for 
the  thirsty  souls  in  the  room  beyond  This,  the  Mensur 
itself,  was  a  room  about  twenty-five  feet  by  forty,  rather 
low-ceilinged,  and  lighted  by  two  windows  at  each  end. 
The  atmosphere  was  dim  and  heavy  with  smoke ;  groups 
of  students  stood  around,  puffing,  drinking,  boisterously 
talking.  One  or  two  were  practicing  "  cuts  "  in  the  cor- 
ners of  the  room,  to  the  imminent  peril  of  the  ears  and 
nose  of  any  who  might  happen  to  stray  into  their  vicin- 
ity. A  duel  was  going  on  between  two  Fuchse  (Fresh- 
men). The  combatants  wore  caps  in  addition  to  the 
general  defensive  armor, —  of  which  more  hereafter, —  and 
each  had  his  second  by  his  left  side,  whose  business  it 
was  to  parry  the  dangerous  blows.  The  two  combatants 
did  their  best,  only  to  be  ridiculed  for  their  pains.  Like 
all  beginners,  they  tried  to  make  up  in  rude  force  what 
they  lacked  in  address.  The  swords  got  entangled  every 
minute  or  two,  and  nearly  every  blow  fellyfo^,  i.  e.,  with 
the  flat  of  the  sword  instead  of  with  the  edge.  The 
utmost  that  the  better  of  the  two  did  was  to  saw  off  a 
lock  of  hair  from  his  antagonist's  head  and  scratch  his 
cheek  enough  to  draw  blood.  The  by-standing  veterans 


72  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

indulged  in  various  cheering  remarks,  such  as :  "  Well 
hit,"  "  Try  it  again,"  or,  when  a  blow  fell  flacher  than 
usual,  "  Where  did  you  learn  that  ?  "  "  Here's  a  bumper 
to  your  royal  good  health."  The  affair  was  evidently  a 
farce  to  all  but  those  immediately  involved. 

The  duel  came  to  an  end  soon  after  we  entered  the 
room.  The  rule  is  that  the  duelists  must  fight  either 
fifteen  minutes  (stops  not  included),  or  until  one  of  them 
is  abgefuhrt,  literally  led  away,  i.  e.,  receives  a  wound  that 
reaches  to  the  bone  or  is  pronounced  dangerous  by  the 
surgeon  in  attendance.  If  no  Abfuhr  is  declared,  the 
umpire  pronounces  the  duel  over  at  the  end  of  fifteen 
minutes.  The  two  "  foxes,"  accordingly,  fought  out  their 
time  and  were  released,  greatly  to  their  own  satisfaction. 
Preparations  were  then  made  for  the  affair  of  the  day, 
the  duel  between  M and  Von  H . 

Mensur  duels,  as  a  matter  of  course,  are  fought  with 
the  Schl'ager,  a  long,  thin,  and  narrow  sword  with  a 
basket-hilt.  One  edge  is  left  perfectly  dull;  the  other 
is  sharpened  for  about  twenty  inches  from  the  end,  which 
is  not  a  round  point  but  blunt.  The  guard,  or  position, 
does  not  resemble  in  the  least  that  of  the  sabreur  or  the 
small-swordsman ;  it  is  something  peculiar  to  itself.  I  can 
scarcely  describe  it  better  than  by  asking  the  reader 
to  hold  his  right  arm,  curved,  above  and  in  front  of  his 
head,  and  let  his  cane  hang  perfectly  loose  from  his  hand. 
It  should  be  observed  that  the  only  object  of  attack  and 
defense  is  the  head  and  face.  The  chest  is  protected  by 
a  thick,  long  pad  of  buckskin  ;  around  the  neck,  to  pro- 


A  UF  DER  MENSUR.  73 

tect  the  jugular  vein,  the  carotid  artery  and  the  other 
important  bloodvessels,  is  wrapped  a  very  heavy  silk 
cravat,  that  comes  up  to  the  point  of  the  chin.  The  eyes 
are  guarded  by  massive  iron  goggles  without  glasses. 
Attached  to  the  rear  of  the  buckskin  pad,  at  the  small 
of  the  back,  is  a  short  tag  or  loose  projecting  strip  of 
leather;  the  object  of  this  is  to  give  the  unemployed 
hand,  during  the  round,  something  to  hold  on  by  and 
thus  keep  it  out  of  harm's  way.  The  sword-arm  is  pro- 
tected by  a  heavy  buckskin  glove  reaching  from  the 
shoulder  to  the  sword-hilt.  The  guard,  which  would 
be  useless  for  sabre  or  fleuret  fighting,  will  be  found  to 
be  a  perfectly  natural  one  for  defending  the  face  and 
head.  The  cut  of  the  Schlager  is  not  the  heavy,  down- 
bearing  blow  of  the  sabre,  still  less  the  thrust  of  the  fleu- 
ret; it  is  a  short,  quick,. whipping  motion,  whereby  the 
swordsman,  keeping  his  arm  in  the  same  general  position, 
lets  the  sword  revolve  with  the  hand  on  a  free  wrist,  as  it 
is  called,  and  tries  to  cut  over  or  under  his  adversary's 
guard.  This  peculiar  whipping  movement  is  not  to  be 
described,  and  can  be  acquired  only  by  long  and  inces- 
sant practice.  In  the  hand  of  an  experienced  fencer,  the 
Schlager,  although  of  course  inflexible  in  the  line  of  its 
edge,  seems  actually  to  coil  over  one's  guard,  like  the 
snapper  of  a  whip. 

Bloodshed  aside,  the  general  appearance  of  the  duel- 
ists is  very  comical.  The  pad  and  cravat  and  spectacles 
make  them  look  somewhat  like  a  pair  of  submarine 
divers  in  their  armor.  Then,  it  is  interesting  to  watch 


74  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

the  left  hand  pulling  on  the  tag  in  convulsive  sympathy 
with  the  movements  of  the  right  hand.  Whenever  the 
swords  become  entangled,  or  a  wound  or  what  seems 
to  be  a  wound  is  given,  the  umpire  cries,  Halt !  The 
seconds  then  separate  their  principals,  and  the  doctor 
makes  his  examination.  This  constitutes  a  round.  As 
the  hanging  guard  is  a  fatiguing  one,  and  as  lowering 
the  sword-arm  would  be  tantamount  either  to  a  signal 
of  defeat  or  an  evidence  of  cowardice,  the  principal  is 
allowed  to  rest  his  arm  on  the  shoulder  of  his  second  in 
the  intervals  between  the  rounds.  I  doubt  whether  the 
civilized  world  can  afford  an  odder  sight  than  that  of  a 
student  in  full  panoply  pacing  up  and  down  the  Mensur 
and  leaning  his  sword-arm  confidingly  on  his  corps- 
brother's  shoulder,  while  the  surgeon  gravely  inspects 
his  adversary's  head. 

The  duel  between  M and  Von  H— —  was  to  be, 

in  technical  phrase,  ohm  ohne,  that  is,  without  caps  and 
without  seconds.  The  principals  had  their  seconds,  it 
is  true,  but  these  did  not  stand  by  during  the  round  and 
ward  off  Tief -quart  or  other  dangerous  blows ;  they  kept 
back,  and  only  advanced  to  part  the  principals  when  the 
umpire  cried,  Halt.  Nor  did  the  principals  wear  the 
corps-cap ;  head  and  face,  with  the  exception  of  the 
eyes,  were  entirely  exposed. 

Whatever  else  it  may  or  may  not  do,  the  German 
Mensur  certainly  gives  the  observer  a  good  field  for 

studying  diversity  of  character.  Mi and  Von  H 

were  placed  face  to  face,  seven  or  eight  paces  apart. 


A  UF  DER  MENSUR.  75 

Every  body  became  breathless  with  attention.  The 
second  of  one  party  cried,  Legt  aus,  lay  out,  i.  e.,  get 
ready,  get  on  guard;  the  other  responded,  Sie  liegen 
aus,  they  are  ready.  The  umpire  called  out,  Los  /  The 
combatants  took  each  three  steps  in  advance  and  came 
up  to  position ;  the  duel  had  begun. 

Von  H ,  a  swordsman  of  good  standing,  very 

popular  and  very  plucky,  was  tall,  slender  but  vigorous, 
and  attractive  in  his  mien  and  manners ;  his  face  bore 

the  marks  of  one  or  two  previous  encounters.  M , 

on  the  other  hand,  was  rather  undersized,  almost  burly 
in  appearance,  but  with  keen  dark  eyes  and  a  resolute, 
one  might  say  an  "  ugly  "  set  to  the  mouth.  Although 
his  face  was  as  smooth  and  full  of  color  as  that  of  a  girl, 
his  action  and  expression  made  it  evident  that  he  was  a 
dangerous  man.  In  addition  to  quickness  and  coolness, 
he  had  the  great  advantage  of  being  left-handed. 

Von  H ,  who  had  apparently  studied  his  antagon- 
ist's style,  was  bent  upon  giving  him  plenty  to  do. 
Being  taller  by  several  inches,  he  sought  to  improve  the 
advantage  by  making  a  furious  attack,  striking  four  or 
five  Hochquart  in  rapid  succession,  in  the  attempt  to 

beat  down  M 's  guard  or  to  reach  over  it  and  cut 

the  back  of  his  head.  But  for  this  M was  altogether 

too  cool  and  firm.  Parrying  each  attack  with  his  arm, 
which  he  kept  in  perfect  position,  he  merely  made  an 
occasional  upward  feint,  an  easy  flirt  of  the  sword,  rather 
than  a  decided  cut.  It  was  evident  that  he  acted  strictly 
on4 the  defensive,  and  bided  his  opportunity.  In  this 


76  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

way  three  rounds  were  fought  in  about  as  many  minutes. 

Von  H 's  chin  was  slightly  grazed,  M had  not 

been  touched  at  all.     In  the  fourth  round,  Von  H- 

made  a  more  furious  onslaught  than  usual,  reaching  very 
far  over,  and  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  at  last  succeeded 

in  cutting  the  back  of  M 's  head.     The  umpire  cried, 

Halt,  and  M had  to  submit  to  the  doctor's  inspec- 
tion ;  he  did  so  with  a  bad  grace,  smiling  ironically,  as 
if  to  say :  What  nonsense.  The  surgeon  could  not  find 
any  wound,  and  round  number  five  was  called.  As 

M came  to  position,  I  noticed  that  he  thrust  his 

forward  foot  a  trifle  farther  out  than  usual,  gave  his  head 
a  slight  shake  and  his  lips  a  slight  curl.  I  felt  instinct- 
ively that  this  time  he  meant  mischief.  As  usual,  Von 

H led  off,  but  this  time  with  a  rattling  Hochterz  that 

almost  broke  both  blades.     M parried,  and  replied 

with  a  quick,  strong  upward  cut.    Von  H had  barely 

time  to  recover  guard  and  parry.  He  did  so,  however, 
but  unfortunately  in  the  movement  suffered  his  wrist  to 
drop  an  inch  or  two.  In  a  twinkling,  apparently  as  if  it 

were  the  same  motion,  M 's  upward  cut  was  reversed 

to  Hochterz  (what  would  have  been  Hoch-quart  for  one 
right-handed).  With  a  dull  gleam  and  an  inexpressibly 
rapid  swish,  his  Schldger  swooped  upon  his  antagonist's 
exposed  forehead.  A  subdued  hum  thrilled  through  the 
assembly.  A  stream  o'f  bright  red  blood  spirted  on  the 
floor,  and  it  needed  no  doctor's  examination  to  pro- 
nounce the  duel  over.  It  had  lasted  five  or  six  minutes, 
and  the  victor  had  struck  only  one  real  blow.  One  may 


A  UF  DER  MENSUR.  77 

attend  many  a  duel  without  witnessing  a  like  display  of 
tactics.  The  successful  duellant  had  simply  kept  his 
guard  and  struck  in  the  nick  of  time. 

The  reader  is  doubtless  ready  with  his  comments : 
What  a  shocking  display  of  brutality,  what  a  senseless 
mutilation  of  the  human  countenance !  I  agree  with 
him  fully.  In  fact,  many  a  German  corps-student 
will  do  the  same.  Yet  it  is  only  fair  that  we  should 
look  upon  the  matter  from  every  point  of  view,  and  avoid 
judging  it  by  our  own  standards  exclusively.  Were  the 
students  the  only  class  of  duelists  in  Germany,  or  in 
Europe,  the  practice  would  soon  be  put  down.  But  such 
is  not  the  case.  In  England,  and  in  the  older  States  of 
our  Union,  the  appeal  to  arms  as  a  satisfaction  for 
wounded  honor  has  gone  out  of  fashion.  Popular  opin 
ion  is  against  it.  But  in  France,  Germany,  Italy,  Russia, 
duels  occur  continually.  I  need  only  cite,  among  recent 
instances,  the  v  deplorable  encounter  between  Armand 
Carrel  and  Emile  de  Girardin,  the  one  between  the  Due 
de  Montpensier  and  Henri  de  Bourbon,  or  the  one  that 
occurred  but  a  few  months  ago  between  two  Roumanian 
noblemen  residing  in  Paris.*  One  who  reads  the  Euro- 
pean press  regularly  will  find  mention  made  of  a  duel 
every  month  or  two.  The  truth  is  that  public  opinion 
on  the  continent  sustains  the  practice,  and,  in  such 
matters,  public  opinion  is  irresistible.  German  students 
duel  for  the  same  reasons  that  lead  German  officers, 

*  Even  as  I  write,  the  world  of  Paris  is  agog  with  the  duel  in  which  Prince 
Metternich  has  figured. 

*7 


78  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

journalists,  noblemen,  and  others  of  the  genus  irritabile 
to  resort  to  arms,  namely,  because  they  regard  it  as  the 
only  dignified  and  gentlemanly  way  of  resenting  an  insult. 
In  this  respect,  they  are  in  accordance  with  the  general 
tone  of  feeling  in  the  community,  they  are  neither  better 
-rior  worse  than  the  other  upper  classes.  But  they  are 
to  be  condemned,  even  on  their  own  theory,  for  convert- 
ing what  should  be  the  exception  into  a  modus  vivendi^  as 
it  were,  making  student-honor  a  matter  of  conventional- 
ism and  converting  a  final  resort  into  an  every-day 
pastime.  They  duel  so  much,  and  on  such  frivolous 
pretexts,  that  the  impartial  observer  must  accuse  them 
of  fighting  simply  because  they  like  to  fight.  Further- 
more, by  their  paddings  and  goggles  (to  say  nothing  of 
caps  and  seconds),  and  by  their  peculiar  mode  of  fight- 
ing, they  eliminate  the  element  of  danger  almost  com- 
pletely, and  make  the  Mensur  encounter  a  mere  display 
of  address.  The  wounds  inflicted  by  the  Schlager  are 
rarely  serious,  being  clean  cuts  with  a  sharp  edge,  and 
generally  heal  in  a  fortnight.  If  properly  cared  for,  they 
do  not  leave  a  bad  scar.  Occasionally  one  hears  of  a 
grave  disfigurement,  possibly  a  fatal  termination  to  a 
Schlager  duel ;  but  such  results  come  from  what  might 
be  called  an  accident,  as  the  breaking  of  a  sword-blade. 
In  ninety-nine  instances  out  of  the  hundred,  a  student- 
duel  is  like  the  two  that  I  have  described :  either  a  harm- 
less and  almost  farcical  set-to  between  men  who  cannot 
do  each  other  much  harm,  or  a  scientific  trial  of  skill 
between  veterans  who  know  how  to  give  and  take.  I 


A  UF  DER  MENSUR.  79 

once  asked  a  friend  of  mine,  a  corps-student  at  the  time 
and  a  splendid  Schlager*  what  he  really  thought  of  the 
Mensur.  "  O,"  said  he,  "  it  is  an  abominable  piece  of 
nonsense  (fin  grasslicher  Unsinn\  but  at  any  rate  it  is 
better  than  street-fighting." 

It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  nine  tenths  of  the  duels  are 
fought  without  any  real  provocation ;  one  student  hap- 
pens to  bump  against  the  other  in  the  street,  or  one 
chaffs  the  other  a  trifle  too  sharply.  The  students  have 
a  code  of  honor  of  their  own,  namely,  a  list  of  expres- 
sions which  one  can  not  himself  use  without  rendering 
himself  liable  to  a  challenge  and  which  one  must  always 
resent.  Prominent  among  these  is  the  word  dumm  ' 
(stupid),  especially  in  the  connection:  dummer  Junge. 
It  is  a  direct  provocation  to  call  your  colleague  a  dummer 
Junge  ;  it  is  not,  to  tell  him  that  he  lies !  The  German 
word  "lie"  does  not  suggest  such  a  degree  of  moral 
obliquity  as  does  the  English. 

The  reader  .  must  not  imagine,  however,  that 
Mensur  duels  are  the  only  ones.  From  time  to  time 
there  is  an  encounter  with  sabres  or  even  with  pistols. 
These  are  rare,  but  they  do  occur,  and  are  kept  very 
secret ;  generally  they  are  fought  outside  the  limits  of 
the  University  jurisdiction.  They  are  real  duels,  the 
supposed  satisfaction  for  some  gross  insult. 

The  reader  will  probably  wish  to  learn  why  it  is  that 
the  university  as  a  rule  treats  Mensur  duels  so  lightly, 
scarcely  interfering  to  prevent  them,  and,  when  the 

*  He  is  now  professor  in  a  neighboring  university. 


8o  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

beadles  have  made  an  arrest,  punishing  the  offenders 
with  a  mere  nominal  imprisonment  of  a  few  days  or  a 
fortnight.  Permit  me  to  meet  the  interrogatory  with  the 
following  imaginary  counter-question  from  the  university 
court.  Here  are  hundreds  of  young  men  from  various 
quarters  of  the  country,  all  more  or  less  imbued  with  the 
notion  that  it  is  right  and  honorable  to  resent  an  insult, 
all  at  that  age  in  life  when  passion  runs  highest,  sus- 
tained and  even  urged  on  by  the  general  opinion  of  the 
community,  that  looks  upon  a  Mensur  as  a  venial  youth- 
ful escapade,  and  a  Schlager  scar  as  something  to  be 
boasted  of  in  after-life.  What  would  you  have  us  do  ? 
Suppress  the  duel  and  punish  rigorously  the  duelist  ? 
We  can  not  do  the  one,  we  dare  not  do  the  other.  Our 
students  will  fight,  because  the  quarrel  is  in  them  and 
must  come  out.  Our  colleagues  of  the  Heidelberg  fac- 
ulty tried  once,  years  ago,  to  put  an  end  to  the  practice, 
but  outside  pressure  was  too  strong  for  them  and  they  were 
forced  to  abandon  the  attempt.  All  that  is  in  our  power, 
we  do ;  we  discourage  utterly  pistol  and  sabre  duels,  by 
ferreting  out  the  real  offender  and  punishing  him  to  the 
full  extent  of  our  authority ;  we  leave  Mensur  duels  to 
the  general  good  sense  of  the  students ;  if  they  become 
too  numerous,  or  if  they  threaten  to  assume  an  aggra- 
vated shape,  we  check  them  for  a  while  by  relegating  the 
elements  of  discord.  But  there  is  one  thing  that  we  can 
do,  and  always  do ;  we  prevent  bullying.  We  suffer  no 
one  to  be  overridden  and  dragged  into  a  duel  against 
his  own  judgment,  either  by  threats  or  by  abuse.  If  a 


A  UF  DER  MENSUR.  8 1 

man  chooses  to  fight,  he  can  take  his  chance.     If  he 
does  not  choose  to  fight,  we  protect  him. 

These  are  not  idle  words.  The  reader  may  rest 
assured  that  there  is  no  more  scrupulous  defender  of 
the  inviolability  of  a  man's  person  and  feelings  than  the 
court  of  a  German  university.  In  1863,  at  a  time  when 
diplomatic  relations  between  Prussia  and  Hanover  were 
rapidly  becoming  delicate  in  the  extreme,  the  University 
of  Gottingen  did  not  hesitate  to  banish  for  two  years  the 
nephew  of  one  of  the  most  notorious  and  influential 
generals  in  the  Prussian  service,  merely  because  he 
insulted  verbally  but  grossly  a  fellow-student  in  the 
street.  I  feel,  no  hesitation  in  affirming  that  the  student 
who  should  presume  to  strike,  either  with  his  cane  or  with 
his  hand,  another  student,  and  should  decline  to  make 
public  apology  and  amends,  if  demanded,  would  be 
cashiered  within  a  week.  He  would  have  Ihe  pleasure 
of  reading  his  name  placarded  in  big  staring  letters  on 
the  Black  Board,  and  knowing  that  he  was  excluded 
from  every  seat  of  learning  between  the  Rhine  and  the 
Vistula.  American  though  I  am,  I  feel  bound  to  state 
explicitly  that,  on  this  point  at  least,  we  have  much  to 
learn  from  Germany.  Dueling,  it  must  be  admitted,  is 
an  evil.  But  there  are  others  equally  great  and  much 
meaner.  I  refer  to  "hazing,"  "rushing," " nagging,"  and 
"smoking-out."  These  are  outrages  upon  all  that  makes 
life  worth  living.  They  not  only  invade  the  sanctity  of  a 
private  room,  but  they  humiliate  the  victim  at  a  time 
when  the  character  is  forming  and  impressions  are'' 


82  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

assuming  their  final   set.     Having   myself    escaped    all 
these   trials  of  American   college   life,  I  can  speak  my 
mind  freely  and  without  resentment.     To  one  who  has 
lived  under  both  systems,  our  own  will  appear  a  mixture 
of  childishness  and  tyranny,  a  system  of  terrorism  ad- 
ministered by  beardless  youths  who  were  better  at  home 
conning  their  geography  and   grammar.    'It   is  not  my 
purpose  to  defend  German  practices,  still  less  to  commit 
the  absurdity  of  arguing  for  their  adoption  in  America. 
Both  countries  are  in  need  of  reform.     But  this  much 
surely  the  sober-minded  thinker  can  say :  that  the  Ger- 
man system,    rough   and   brutal   though   it   may  be,   is 
at  least   manly.     It   holds  the  student  to   the   strictest 
accountability  for  all  that  he  does  and  says.     He  can 
not  play  the  Hector  one  day,  and  the  meek  and  lowly 
minded  the  next.     By  insulting  in  any  way  his  fellow,  he 
places  himself  before  the  inexorable  alternative :   apolo- 
gize  or   fight!     If   a   student   wishes   to   lead   a   quiet, 
secluded  life,  devoting  himself  exclusively  to  study,  he 
can  do  so  with  the  assurance  that  his  intentions  will  be 
respected,  his  person  unmolested.     He  has  only  to  mani- 
fest his  disposition,  to  let  the  world  know  that  he  means 
peace.     But  then  he  must  carefully  observe  the -golden 
rule,  he  must  not  fail  to  do  unto  others  as  fte  would  have 
others  do  unto  him.     He  must  never  provoke  abuse.     If, 
on  the  other  hand,  his  wish  is  to  fight  and  row  with  con- 
genial spirits,  it  is  easily  gratified.     Time  will  never  hang 
heavy  on  his  hands.     He  will  always  find  men  by  the 


A  UF  DER  MENSUR.  83 

score  ready  to  quarrel  with  him  over  the  color  of  the 
Prophet's  beard  and  meet  him  steel  to  steel. 

The  fault  of  the  American  system  is  that,  under  it,  the 
student  who  is  in  the  least  degree  odd  in  appearance  or 
manners  may  be  subjected  to  annoyance  and  persecution 
from  which  there  is  no  escape  and  for  which  there  is  no 
redress.  The  fault  of  the  German  is  that  it  tolerates 
bloodshed,  and  makes  student-honor,  to  a  large  extent, 
conventional.  On  the  other  hand,  it  confines  personal 
altercation  to  those  who  choose  to  indulge  in  it  of  their 
own  accord. 


T 


CHAPTER  V. 

Daylight  in  German. 

HE  fall  and  winter  passed  uneventfully.  The  sea- 
son was  a  cold  one,  giving  us  plenty  of  skating  on 
the  Upper  Meadows,  outside  of  the  Grone  Gate.  Skat- 
ing and  an  occasional  visit  to  the  theater  were  my  only 
relaxations ;  otherwise  I  kept  close  to  my  books  and  lec- 
tures. Had  the  theater  troupe  and  stage  repertory  been 
better,  I  might  have  paid  perhaps  more  frequent  atten- 
tions to  the  muse.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  even- 
ings could  be  spent  more  profitably  and  agreeably  in 
talking  poor  German  to  my  landlady,  and  listening  to  her 
capitally  told  stories  of  German  life.  It  has  often  been 
a  matter  of  astonishment  to  me  how  much  language  one 
can  learn  in  conversation  with  intelligent  and  cultivated 
women.  The  solid  framework  of  knowledge  one  has  to 
construct  for  one's  self,  slowly  and  painfully,  but  ease  and 
grace  of  discourse,  the  mastery  of  those  charming  little 
words  and  phrases  that  make  conversation  a  continuous 
flow,  rather  than  a  clumsy  chain  of  detached  proposi- 
tions, can  be  obtained  only  through  intercourse  with  the 
other  sex.  In  this  respect,  German  women  are  not  equal 
to  the  French  ;  they  have  less  style,  less  finish,  and  also 
less  animation.  On  the  other  hand,  they  have  more 


DA  YLIGHT  IN  GERMAN.  85 

heartiness,  by  nature  a  kinder  disposition.  They  are 
devoted  friends,  always  obliging,  thoroughly  unselfish, 
and  easily  pleased. 

Perhaps  the  reader  is  familiar  with  the  expression 
attributed  to  Dr.  Johnson  on  landing  at  Dieppe  :  "  Good 
Heavens !  Even  the  little  children  speak  French !  " 
On  arriving  at  Gottingen,  I  found,  in  like  manner,  that 
all  the  boys  and  girls  spoke  German  !  What  was  even 
more  surprising  and  humiliating,  they  spoke  a  good  deal 
faster  and  better  than  .1  could.  Can  there  be  anything 
more  absurd  than  to  find  yourself,  who  have  obtained 
your  legal  majority,  beaten  completely  by  a  child  not  yet 
in  its  teens,  to  see  that  all  your  book-learning  is  as  noth- 
ing by  the  side  of  prattle  imbibed,  as  it  were,  with  the 
mother's  milk,  picked  up  unconsciously  and  without  an 
effort  in  the  nursery-room?  Although  not  offering  my 
experience  on  this  point  as  anything  novel  or  extraordi- 
nary, I  desire  to  make  an  application  of  it  that  has  not 
yet  received  the  attention  which  it  deserves.  It  is  this, 
that  whoever  seeks  to  learn  a  language  well  and  com- 
pletely must,  in  a  measure,  learn  it  even  as  a  little  child, 
must  approach  it  in  a  humble,  we  might  say  a  reverent 
spirit,  and  let  it  work  upon  him  before  he  attempts  to 
work  upon  it.  Language  is  a  mode  of  expression  for  the 
widest  range  of  ideas  and  feelings  ;  unless  we  essay  it  in 
all  its  stages,  from  its  lispings  and  stammerings  to  its 
most  exalted  utterances,  we  shall  never  fully  enter  into 
its  character.  Furthermore,  the  beginner  can  learn  very 
much  from  children's  talk.  The  more  I  reflect  upon  the 
8 


86  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

numbers  of  those  who  exert  themselves  from  year  to  year 
to  acquire  a  practical  knowledge  of  foreign  languages,  the 
greater  is  my  surprise  that  no  one  of  our  professed  teach- 
ers has  given  to  this  fact  special  prominence.  It  would 
be  going  out  of  my  way  to  attempt  to  give  an  explanation 
of  all  the  causes.  Let  me  call  attention  to  one  or  two. 
The  besetting  sin  of  the  beginner  in  language  is  mauvaise 
honte ;  he  is  tongue-tied,  helpless,  embarrassed  in  the 
presence  of  his  equals.  He  is  ashamed  to  speak,  for  fear 
of  making  a  mistake ;  it  seems  to  him  at  times  as  though 
everybody  were  watching  him  and  waiting  for  a  blunder. 
Of  course  this  is  a  delusion,  but,  like  other  unreasonable 
delusions,  it  cannot  be  reasoned  away.  In  speaking  with 
children,  however,  this  mauvaise  honte  vanishes  of  itself; 
the  young  man  who  is  ashamed  to  open  his  lips  before 
other  young  men,  will  converse  freely  with  a  boy,  as  if  it 
were  his  own  brother ;  he  loses  the  morbid  dread  of  being 
watched  and  corrected,  and  blunders  on  the  best  he  can. 
This,  it  is  to  be  observed,  is  half  the  battle  in  learning  to 
talk.  But  there  is  another  point  equally  important. 
Children  are  great  tyrants  ;  they  are  not  exacting  in  the 
matter  of  grammar ;  they  tolerate  all  sorts  of  mistakes, 
without  even  suspecting  one  of  talking  queerly,  that  is, 
as  a  foreigner ;  but,  in  one  respect,  they  are  inexorable. 
They  will  have  easy  words  and  phrases,  and  they  will 
have  the  right  word  for  the  right  thing.  No  amount  of 
circumlocution,  of  general  platitudes  and  second-hand 
knowledge  will  answer ;  one  must  call  a  kettle  a  kettle,  a 
saw  a  saw,  or  the  child  will  not  understand.  Experience 


DA  YLIGHT  IN  GERMAN.  87 

will  teach  us  that  in  conversing  with  children  we  must 
always  reconstruct  our  knowledge,  so  to  speak ;  must  put 
our  ideas  into  the  clearest  and  most  compact  shape ; 
keep  the  sharpest  watch  over  nouns,  adjectives  and  verbs, 
and  drop  all  conventionalisms.  In  listening  to  children's 
talk,  we  can  almost  imagine  ourselves  "  hearing  the  grass 
grow ;  "  we  surprise  the  human  spirit  in  its  healthful, 
spontaneous  evolution. 

It  is  not  in  my  power  to  dwell  upon  this  subject. 
I  can  only  assure  the  reader  that,  having  lived  in  both 
French  and  German  families,  and  tried  the  experiment 
thoroughly,  I  attribute  whatever  conversational  ability 
I  may  possess  quite  as  much  to  the  children  as  to  the 
parents.  My  landlady  in  Gottingen  had  but  one  child 
living  with  her,  a  mere  girl  just  in  her  teens,  but  very 
affable,  intelligent,  and  devoted  to  her  lessons  with  an 
assiduity  that  would  put  to  shame  the  typical  American 
miss  who  has  begun  already  to  dream  of  balls  and  val- 
entines. For  three  years  we  were  the  best  of  friends, 
and  the  German  that  I  learned  from  her  will  stand  me  in 
good  stead  for  a  life-time. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  the  advantages  of  the  home-circle 
that  I  was  enjoying,  I  determined  in  early  spring  to  make 
a  change  of  quarters.  To  come  to  a  German  university 
and  not  live  just  as  a  student,  seemed  like  visiting  Rome 
without  getting  a  look  at  the  Pope.  Besides,  I  was  some- 
what cramped  and  uncomfortable,  the  best  rooms  in  the 
house  being  occupied  by  the  older  boarders.  I  selected, 
therefore,  a  student-room  on  the  Wende  street,  the  prin- 


88  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

cipal  street  of  the  town,  and  had  my  books  and  "  traps  " 
transferred.  It  was  a  pleasant  abode.  The  main  room 
had  three  windows  in  front,  and  one  on  the  side ;  the 
sleeping-room,  facing  on  a  side  street,  had  two  windows. 
The  furniture  was  altogether  new.  For  all  this  comfort 
I  paid  the  moderate  sum  of  five  and  a  half  louts  d*or  per 
semester,  i.  e.,  from  Easter  to  Michaelmas,  or  vice  versa. 
In  university  towns,  this  is  the  habitual  way  of  renting 
rooms.  Reckoning  the  louts  d'or  at  five  thalers  and  a 
half,  my  rental  for  six  months  was  a  fraction  over  thirty 
thalers,  say  twenty-two  dollars.  I  had  really  more  room 
than  I  needed. 

Meals  and  fuel  were  of  course  extra.  I  had  to  make  a 
slight  outlay  for  table-furniture,  buying  some  knives  and 
forks,  plates,  cups  and  saucers,  napkins,  and  table-cloths. 
This  was  my  bachelor  outfit.  The  slight  expense  was 
more  than  balanced  by  the  luxurious  sense  of  being  my 
own  master,  of  being  able  to  give  a  bachelor  supper 
to  my  friends,  whenever  so  disposed.  I  continued  to 

take  my  dinner  with   Frau  H ,  but   breakfast  and 

supper  were'in  my  own  room.  Short  of  being  in  one's 
own  family,  I  doubt  whether  there  is  a  more  enjoyable 
state  than  that  of  living  by  one's  self  in  hired  lodgings  in 
Germany.  It  is  possible  in  New  York,  to  say  nothing 
of  London  and  Paris;  but  in  New  York,  the  expense  is 
ruinous,  and  even  in  England  and  France  one  will 
miss  that  peculiar  institution,  the  Dienstmadchen.  The 
German  Dienstmadchen  is  no  more  the  domestique  of 
France,  or  the  "  Bridget "  of  America,  than  Gottingen 


DA  YLIGHT  IN  GERMAN.  89 

is  Oxford  or  Harvard.  She  is  an  institution  by  herself, 
and  therefore  deserves  especial  mention.  In  fact,  life  in 
Germany  would  be  scarcely  what  it  is  without  her.  If 
you  wish  an  extra  supper  in  the  evening,  you  consult 
your  Dienstmadchen  j  if  you  merely  wish  to  send  out  for 
a  glass  of  beer,  you  employ  her  services.  She  will  bring 
home  a  basketful  of  books  from  the  university  library, 
make  your  fires,  go  on  all  your  thousand  and  one  errands, 
and  do  everything  for  you  but  blacken  your  boots.  That 
is  the  perquisite  of  the  Stiefelfuchs.  Her  capacity  for 
work  and  her  general  cheerfulness  border  on  the  marvel- 
ous. One  such  servant  girl  will  wait  upon  six  or  seven 
students  and  do  the  family-work  in  addition.  She  brings 
the, dinner  for  those  who  take  that  meal  in  their  rooms; 
she  makes  the  beds  and  sweeps  the  rooms  (when  they  are 
swept) ;  in  the  autumn,  she  is  sent  to  the  family-estate 
outside  the  city  walls  to  dig  potatoes  by  way  of  variety. 
Yet  she  is  able  and  ready  to  dance  every  Sunday  night 
from  seven  o'clock  to  two,  and  go  about  her  work  on 
Monday  morning  as  fresh  as  a  June  rose.  Her  only  fault 
is  a  slight  shade  of  impertinence ;  not  the  surly,  mutinous 
impertinence  of  "  Bridget,"  but  the  pert  forwardness  of 
a  good-natured,  spoiled  child.  Like  all  privileged  ser- 
vants, she  thinks  that  she  knows  everything  much  better 
than  her  master. 

Students   commonly  take  their   dinner  at  a  hotel  or 

restaurant,  paying  a  fixed  price  per  month.     Some  few, 

either  on  account  of  ill  health  or  because  they  wish  to 

economize  time,  dine  in  their  rooms.     This  is  unques- 

*8 


90  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

tionably  a  pernicious  habit ;  no  one  can  really  enjoy  the 
principal  meal  of  the  day  in  solitude.  But  the  basket 
used  for  bringing  meals  into  the  house  is  so  practical  and 
so  peculiar  that  I  cannot  refrain  from  describing  it.  It 
is  round,  small  in  diameter,  and  very  deep;  a  wide  slit 
runs  down  one  side  to  the  bottom.  Into  this  basket  the 
dishes,  generally  four  in  number,  are  dropped  one  upon 
the  other.  The  bottom  of  the  first  dish  fits  upon  and 
into  the  second,  the  third  upon  the  second,  and  so  on, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  rings  used  in  moulding  for  long 
vertical  castings.  Each  of  the  dishes  has  a  knob  that 
slips  down  the  slit  and  is  used  as  a  handle  in  pulling  the 
dish  out.  When  the  dishes  are  all  in  place  and  the 
cover  is  on,  the  whole  can  be  easily  carried  quite  a  dis- 
tance, by  means  of  an  arched  handle  over  the  top,  with- 
out spilling  or  cooling  the  contents. 

The  reader  may  imagine  me,  then,  as  lodged  in  very 
comfortable  sunshiny  rooms  on  the  principal  street  in 
town,  nearly  opposite  the  church  of  St.  James.  This 
venerable  edifice,  the  stones  of  which  have  grown  gray- 
black  with  the  lapse  of  centuries,  is  not  beautiful;  its 
outlines  are  too  bald,  its  solitary  tower  too  stiff  and 
awkward.  Still  it  is  an  attractive  building;  my  chief 
pleasure  in  connection  with  it  was  to  watch  the  going  and 
coming  and  listen  to  the  incessant  cawing  of  the  rooks 
that  had  built  them  nests  under  the  eaves  and  in  the 
chinks  of  the  tower.  Every  fair  day,  about  sunset,  they 
flew  around  the  tower  again  and  again  in  a  flock,  evi- 


DA  Y LIGHT  IN  GERMAN.  91 

dently  settling  the  affairs  of  the  day  and  wishing  each 
other  good  night  before  retiring. 

The  first  four  months  passed  in  my  new  abode  were 
a  period  of  unmixed  delight.  I  was  in  the  spring-time 
of  life,  unfettered,  free  to  follow  the  promptings  of  fancy, 
and,  above  all,  stimulated  by  the  consciousness  that  day- 
light had  at  last  dawned  upon  my  studies.  The  patient 
toil  of  preparation  through  the  fall  and  winter  blossomed 
and  put  forth  leaves,  as  it  were,  in  company  with  the 
trees  on  the  old  city  wall.  For  six  long  months  I  had 
slaved  through  grammar  and  translations;  about  the 
beginning  of  March,  as  near  as  I  can  remember,  I  said 
to  myself:  "Somewhat  too  much  of  this."  Bidding 
grammars,  copy-books  and  exercises  a  lasting  farewell,  I 
read !  I  gave  myself  up  without  restraint  to  the  fit,  let 
the  appetite  that  had  been  fasting  so  long  gorge  itself 
without  stint.  The  preparatory  work  having  trained  my 
memory  and  perceptions,  it  was  an  easy  thing  then  to  di- 
gest and  assimilate  whatever  I  might  take  up.  My  read- 
ing was  as  immethodical  as  possible ;  nothing  was  too 
easy  and  simple,  nothing  too  exalted.  In  the  language  of 
Voltaire,  je  permettais  tous  les  genres  hors  le  genre  ennuyeux. 
The  first  literary  work  that  I  read  was  the  Faust.  A 
strange  selection,  yet  perhaps  the  best.  The  copy  that  I 
used  is  still  in  my  possession,  with  all  the  notes  and 
explanations  inserted  in  pencil  at  the  time.  It  surprises 
me  to  see  how  few  words  I  was  obliged  to  look  up  in  the 
dictionary.  It  would  be  presumptuous  to  say  that  I 
understood  Faust  thoroughly;  to  do  that,  one  must  be 


92  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

mature  in  years  and  make  it  a  subject  of  special  study. 
But  so  far  as  sentiment  and  diction  were  concerned,  I 
understood  and  enjoyed  the  poem  with  an  intensity  that 
rather  unsettled  me  for  the  time.  It  haunted  me  day 
and  night,  the  rhymes  and  the  play  of  words  rang  in  my 
ears.  I  read  and  re-read,  until  the  lyrical  and  descrip- 
tive passages  were  firmly  lodged  in  the  memory.  Besides 
Faust,  I  read  Egmont,  Tasso,  in  fact  nearly  all  the  dramas 
and  all  the  minor  poems  of  Goethe,  committing  many  of 
them  to  memory.  It  seemed  as  though  I  could  never 
weary  of  Goethe.  As  to  Schiller,  I  cannot  speak  with 
like  accuracy.  I  read  much,  but  it  did  not  make  such 
an  impression  upon  me  as  to  keep  the  recollection  dis- 
tinct from  reading  done  in  subsequent  years.  My  favor- 
ite author  after  Goethe  was  Lessing;  I  read  all  his 
dramatical  works  and  poetical  pieces,  and  many  of  his 
essays,  but  not  the  Laocoon.  I  also  skimmed  through 
the  minor  poets  and  romancers,  Klopstock,  Uhland,  Wie- 
land,  Heine,  and  the  like.  But  the  book  that  impressed 
me  most  strongly,  the  Faust  excepted,  was  one  that  I 
almost  hesitate  to  mention.  The  name  will  sound  so 
unfamiliar  to  the  reader,  and  the  subject  so  far-fetched 
and  unattractive.  It  was  Vilmar's  Geschichte  der  deuts- 
chen  Nationalliteratur,  a  history  of  the  national  literature 
of  Germany  from  the  earliest  times  down  to  and  includ- 
ing Goethe  and  Schiller.  The  remembrance  of  the  first 
reading  is  as  distinct  as  though  it  were  but  yesterday.  I 
began  at  seven  in  the  evening  and  did  not  knock  off  until 
my  eyes  gave  out  at  three  in  the  morning.  No  sensa- 


DA  YLIGHT  IN  GERMAN.  93 

tional  romance,  I  am  confident,  was  ever  devoured  more 
eagerly.  The  book  came  upon  me  as  the  revelation  of  a 
new  world.  Kriemhild,  Hagen,  Gudrun,  Parzival,  Tris- 
tan and  Isolt,  now  familiar  apparitions,  I  then  met  for 
the  first-time  face  to  face  and  recognized  in  their  beauty 
and  their  grandeur.  The  entire  field  of  German  mediae- 
val poetry,  depicted  so  glowingly  by  the  artist-critic, 
swept  before  me  in  a  majestic  panorama.  Subsequently, 
when  increased  familiarity  with  the  subject  had  brought 
me  to  look  upon  mediceval  German  and  its  literature  with 
more  critical  eyes,  I  was  often  at  a  loss  to  account  for 
the  enthusiasm  which  the  first  perusal  of  Vilmar's  work 
had  called  forth.  His  views  seemed  exaggerated,  hisx 
judgments  too  sanguine.  It  was  only  in  the  fall  of  1872 
that  I  obtained  the  clue  to  the  puzzle,  and  learned  that 
my  earliest  impressions  were  after  all  justified.  A  pupil 
and  warm  admirer  of  Vilmar,  Professor  Grein  of  Mar- 
burg, with  whom  I  was  then  privately  reading  Anglo- 
Saxon,  informed  me  that  Vilmar  had  written  his  History 
from  a  full  heart,  so  to  speak.  He  was  invited  to  deliver 
a  special  course  of  lectures  on  German  literature  at 
Cassel.  Although  already  very  familiar  with  the  ground, 
he  went  over  it  anew,  going  back  directly  to  the  authors 
or  originals  themselves,  eschewing  intermediate  works 
of  criticism,  and  reading  in  extenso.  His  tone  and  his 
views,  accordingly,  have  something  about  them  inde- 
scribably fresh  and  genial.  As  Professor  Grein  observed, 
the  composition  bears  evident  tokens  of  the  "  powerful 
impression  got  directly  from  the  sources  themselves." 


94  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  Vilmar  should  have  suc- 
ceeded in  portraying  so  artistically  and  vividly  the 
growth  of  the  German  mind.  His  work  contains  errors, 
not  a  few  of  them  grave  ones.  For  minuteness  and 
accuracy  it  is  surpassed  by  the  works  of  Gervinus,  Kober- 
stein,  Kurz,  and  others.  But  taken  all  in  all,  as  a  genial, 
animated  and  animating,  continuous  flow  of  description 
and  reflection,  it  is  still  unsurpassed.  By  the  side  of  it, 
the  other  treatises  are  as  dry  as  dust.  It  is  a  work  that 
might  be  introduced  with  profit  in  the  most  advanced 
German  classes  of  our  colleges. 

But  interest  in  a  novel  subject,  and  the  fascination 
exerted  by  Vilmar's  style,  were  not  the  only  ties  that 
attached  me  to  the  History.  More  than  any  other  work, 
more  than  Faust  itself,  it  awakened  me  to  the  full  sense 
of  the  mastery  that  I  had  gained  —  hitherto  uncon- 
sciously —  over  the  German  language.  Vilmar's  style  is 
difficult,  that  is-  to  say,  while  the  range  of  words  is  not 
large  and  the  words  themselves  are  graphic  and  easily 
understood,  the  sentences  are  complicated  in  the  extreme. 
It  is  the  German  style  nar  fgoxrfv.  I  cannot  recall 
another  author  who  uses  habitually  such  long  sentences, 
who  detaches  the  separable  particle  from  the  verb  by 
such  daring  flights  of  direct  and  indirect  object,  adverbs, 
qualifying,  explanatory,  parenthetical  clauses.  One  who 
can  read  Vilmar's  History  rapidly,  say  eight  or  ten  pages 
an  hour,  taking  in  at  a  glance  the  grammatical  relations 
of  all  the  words  in  the  complete  sentence,  seizing  uner- 
ringly the  separable  particle  two,  or  four,  or  even  eight 


DA  YLIGHT  IN  GERMAN.  95 

lines  below  the  verb  to  which  it  belongs,  retaining  the 
sense  of  the  whole  and  its  parts  while  looking  out  an 
occasional  word  in  the  dictionary,  not  baffled  by  length 
or  variety  of  expression,  but  seeing  through  it  as  through 
a  transparent  tissue  :  one  who  can  do  this  is  absolved 
from  his  apprenticeship.  He  is  henceforth  a  master- 
workman  ;  he  has  many  things  still  to  learn>  but  he  can 
learn  them  one  by  one  for  himself ;  the  drudgery  is  over. 
It  was  this  sense  of  mastery,  then,  that  gave  me  such 
pleasure.  I  had  at  last  the  satisfaction  for  many  an  hour 
of  dry  study.  From  that  time  on,  grammar  and  dic- 
tionary were  merely  books  of  reference,  not  daily 
chains.*  The  work  that  gave  me  most  trouble  to  read 
was,  strange  to  say,  the  one  in  which  the  style  is  the 
simplest,  Freytag's  Pictures  of  the  German  Past.  The 
vocabulary  is  very  rich,  and  the  numerous  citations  from 
old  authors,  although  modernized  in  spelling,  give  the 
work  an  archaic  tinge. 

In  this  way,  occupying  myself  exclusively  with  the 
master-pieces  of  German  thought,  I  passed  the  spring 
and  summer.  My  mode  of  life  was  very  simple.  At  the 

*  A?  a  specimen  of  Vilmar's  style,  permit  me  to  cite  untranslated  the  fol- 
lowing passage  from  the  analysis  of  Gottfried  v.  Strassburg's  Tristan  und 
holt  :  "  So  FLIGHT  er  (the  poet)  bei  tier  Stelle,  ivo  er  erzahlt^  dass  endlich  dent 
betrogenen  Gatten  Marke  die  Augen  aufgegangen  seien^  under  (Mark,  the 
husband)  der  ungetreuen  Isolde  kiinftig  besser  zu  huten  beschlossen,  aber  ihre 
Schonheit  ihn  dennoch  blind  gemacht  habe^  und  Isolde  auch  der  strengen  Hut 
zu  spotten  verstanden  habe,  undzwar  um  so  besser,  je  strenger  die  Hut  ivurde — 
eine  Betrachtting  EIN  uber  die  bei  der  Minne  (love)  ubel  angewandte  Hut^in 
ivelcher  er  an  den  spitzigsten  Tadel  das  zarteste  Lob  der  Frauen  auf  die 
%eschickteste  Weise  ankniipft"  (p.  146,  ed.  of  1862.) 

The  entire  passage  turns  on  FLIGHT,  line  3,  and  EIN,  line  8,  which,  together, 
form  the  compound  verb  einflechten^  to  interweave,  insert. 


96  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

beginning  of  the  summer  semester  I  took, pro  forma* 
a  course  of  lectures  by  Professor  Lotze,  on  Natur-Philos- 
ophie.  This  is  anything  but  our  natural  philosophy  ;  it  is 
rather  the  philosophy  of  nature,  a  general  speculative 
discussion  of  the  laws  of  the  material  world  in  their  rela- 
tions to  the  human  spirit,  something  between  physics  and 
psychology.  I  feel  bound  to  confess  that,  although  the 
professor  was  interesting,  I  cut  him  rather  shabbily. 
Goethe  and  Lessing  were  still  more  interesting.  The 
weather  being  fine,  I  spent  nearly  all  my  afternoons  in 
the  open  air,  exploring  the  vicinity  of  Gottingen,  until 
every  village  and  by-path  and  Garten  became  a  familiar 
haunt.  Usually  unaccompanied  on  these  excursions,  I 
always  made  provision  for  spiritual  diversion  by  having  a 
book  or  two  in  my  pocket  to  read  whenever  the  inclina- 
tion came  over  me  and  a  pleasant  resting-place  offered 
itself.  It  was  not  my  practice  to  carry  a  pocket-diction- 
ary. When  an  unfamiliar  word  occurred  in  reading,  I  sim- 
ply underscored  it,  tried  to  think  out  its  meaning,  and  then 
consulted  the  dictionary  after  returning  to  my  room.  It 
has  always  seemed  to  me  that  pocket-dictionaries  are  a 
hindrance  rather  than  a  help.  Being  necessarily  small, 
they  are  also  necessarily  incomplete,  are  not  seldom  inac- 
curate, and  have  the  provoking  trick  of  omitting  the 
precise  word  or  idiom  that  one  wishes  to  find.  Besides, 
it  is  no  loss,  but  a  gain,  to  carry  a  word  or  an  idiom  for  a 
few  hours  in  the  mind  without  knowing  its  exact  mean- 

*  Erery  student  is  compelled  to  take  at  least  one  course  of  lectures  pei 
semester. 


DA  Y LIGHT  IN  GERMAN.  97 

ing.  It  seems  to  lodge  itself  better  in  the  memory,  and 
the  mind  turns  it  over  and  over  in  the  effort  to  find  an 
explanation,  so  that  the  explanation,  when  it  comes  at 
last,  takes  root  in  soil  well  prepared.  Whereas  words 
looked  up'  as  fast  as  they  occur  are  apt  to  resemble  seed 
scattered  by  the  wayside.  So  far  as  my  observation 
extends,  those  who  go  through  life  abroad  with  a  dic- 
tionary in  one  pocket  and  a  phrase-book  in  the  other,  are 
invariably  slipshod  conversationists. 

I  trust  that  the  reader  will  not  regard  this  digression 
upon  the  subject  of  German  literature  as  superfluous. 
My  personal  experience  is  not  offered  as  a  model  for 
imitation,  but  rather  as  a  hint  for  reflection,  and  also  in 
the  hope  of  aiding  in  the  correction  of  what  seem  to  me 
certain  grave  errors  in  the  accepted  plan  of  learning  for- 
eign languages.  In  language  more  than  in  any  other 
study,  the  tone-giving  element,  to  borrow  a  Germanism, 
is  quantity.  One  must  read  not  by  tens  of  pages,  but  by 
hundreds,  must  read  rapidly,  and  above  all  must  read 
authors  entire.  Permit  me  to  cite  one  or  two  authorities. 
Matthew  Arnold  says :  "  Ask  a  good  Greek  scholar  in  the 
ordinary  English  acceptation  of  that  term,  who  at 
the  same  time  knows  a  modern  literature  —  let  us  say 
the  French  literature  —  well,  whether  he  feels  himself 
to  have  most  seized  the  spirit  and  power  of  French  liter- 
ature, or  of  Greek  literature.  Undoubtedly  he  has  most 
seized  the  spirit  and  power  of  French  literature,  simply 
because  he  has  read  so  very  much  more  of  it.  But  if, 
instead  of  reading  work  after  work  of  French  literature, 
9 


98  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

he  had  read  only  a  few  works  or  parts  of  works  in  it,  and 
had  given  the  rest  of  his  time  to  the  sedulous  practice  of 
French  composition  and  to  minutely  learning  the  struc- 
ture and  laws  of  the  French  language,  then  he  would 
know  the  French  literature  much  as  he  knows  the  Greek ; 
he  might  write  very  creditable  French  verse,  but  he 
would  have  seized  the  power  and  spirit  of  the  French 
literature  not  half  so  much  as  he  has  seized  them  at 
present."* 

The  other  quotation  is  this :  "  During  those  secluded 
years,  before  the  call  to  the  New  York  University,  he 
(i.  e.,  Professor  Tayler  Lewis)  read  the  Hebrew  Bible 
through  annually,  for  fourteen  years ;  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey,  entire,  almost  as  often ;  the  whole  of  the  Greek 
drama,  forty-five  extant  plays,  twice  over,  and  many  of 
them  oftener;  all  the  dialogues  of  Plato,  some  of  them 
frequently;  nearly  all  of  Aristotle  —  his  Physica,  Meta- 
physica,  and  his  more  special  physical  treatises,  and  also 
his  ethical  and  political  writings  ;  a  large  part  of  the 
lesser  hexameter  poets,  such  as  Apollonius  Rhodius 
and  Aratus ;  also  Pindar  and  the  pastoral  poets ;  all  of 
Thucydides  ;  all  of  Herodotus ;  all  of  Xenophon  ;  nearly 
all  of  Plutarch,  Longinus,  Lucian,  Diodorus  Siculus,  and 
the  Gnomic  and  Epic  poetry ;  all  of  Virgil,  Horace 
and  Ovid;  and  all  of  Cicero,  except  his  orations."! 

These  citations  will  make  my  position  clear  and 
warrant  me  in  asserting  that  there  is  only  one  way 

*  Higher  Schools  and  Universities  of  Germany.    Ed.  of  1874,  p.  181. 
+  Hart's  Manual  of  American  Literature,  p.  578. 


DA  Y LIGHT  IN  GERMAN.  99 

of  learning  a  language,  for  literary  purposes,  and  that 
way  consists  in  reading.  After  the  student  has  mastered 
the  forms  so  that  he  is  no  longer  under  their  thraldom, 
he  has  only  to  approach  the  master-minds  and  listen  to 
all  that  they  have  to  say;  he  will  thus,  as  Matthew 
Arnold  expresses  it,  seize  the  power  and  spirit  of  the 
literature. 

Our  collegiate  and  school  instruction  in  French  and 
German  is  faulty  both  in  conception  and  in  execution. 
The  schools  attempt  nothing  more  than  a  superficial 
glibness  of  conversation  and  composition,  which  is  rarely 
acquired  and,  when  acquired,  is  never  retained,  and  the 
colleges,  which  should  exact  a  knowledge  of  French 
and  German  grammar  for  admission,  make  the  course  in 
modern  languages  little  more  than  a  tedious  additional 
drill  in  paradigms  and  exercises ;  they  overlook  the  real 
object  of  learning  a  language,  namely  the  ability  to  read 
a  book  fluently  and  understand  it  both  in  itself  and  in  its 
relations  to  kindred  books.  As  'for  French  literature 
and  German  literature,  as  representing  the  body  of 
thought  of  those  nations,  the  historic  growth  of  the  spirit 
of  each,  they  never  seem  to  have  occurred  to  the  minds 
of  those  who  frame  our  college  curriculum. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Idlesse. 

P^HE  spring  and  summer  of  1862  were  spent  as  I 
•*•  have  described,  pleasantly  and  profitably.  Not 
so  the  following  winter.  For  want  of  a  better  term,  I 
have  entitled  the  present  chapter  as  above.  It  treats  of 
the  most  dreary  and  discouraging  part  of  my  life  in 
Germany,  a  period  of  many  months  spent  in  forced 
inactivity.  I  shall  be  as  brief  as  possible. 

The  early  summer  was  warm  and  agreeable.  But  in 
August  the  weather  changed,  and  we  had  a  succession 
of  cold  rain-storms.  Not  having  succeeded  in  finding  a 
traveling  companion,  I  remained  in  Gottingen  through 
the  long  vacation,  and  kept  up  my  reading.  In  the  early 
part  of  September,  ill  luck  came  upon  me  in  the  shape 
of  a  violent  cold,  that  seemed  to  be  satisfied  with  noth- 
ing short  of  running  through  the  entire  system.  Every 
organ  was  affected  more  or  less,  the  head,  eyes,  ears, 
stomach.  By  the  end  of  the  month,  after  suffering  in 
every  conceivable  way  and  congratulating  myself  on  the 
prospect  of  recovery,  symptoms  of  rheumatism  showed 
themselves.  I  became  lame  and  unable  to  walk,  and  the 
right  knee  was  badly  swollen.  The  disease  finally  took 


IDLESSE.  loi 


the  form  of  water  in  the  knee.*  It  was  an  obstinate 
case,  not  yielding  for  weeks  and  months  to  the  most 
persistent  treatment.  The  disease  itself  did  not  occa- 
sion much  pain,  but  the  cure  was  extremely  disagreeable. 
I  was  obliged  to  keep  the  leg  stretched  but  oh  the 
sofa,  to  wear  a  heavy  linen  banda'ge  wrapped/  'tightiy 
around  the  knee,  and  to  paint  the  knee  three'  or 'four 
times  a  day  with  a  solution  of  iodine.  The  attack  kept 
me  a  prisoner  in  my  room  from  September  until  the 
first  week  in  January.  This  close  confinement  became 
toward  the  last  very  depressing.  The  bandage  was  at 
times  an  almost  insupportable  burden,  I  lost  my  appe- 
tite, sleep  came  only  fitfully  and  was  seldom  refreshing. 
So  far  as  study,  or  even  reading  was  concerned,  I  may 
admit  that  I  did  none.  There  was  no  energy,  no 
"  brains  "  for  anything  of  a  higher  order  than  the  aver- 
age Roman  or  Novelle.  The  only  literary  works  that  I 
remember  reading  during  this  period  were  Schiller's 
short  stories  in  prose  and  his  Thirty  Years'  War.  This 
last  was  a  doleful  infliction,  it  must  be  -  confessed,  but 
then  it  tallied  with  the  invalid's  mood. 

Fortunately  kind  friends  stood  by  me  patiently. 
Thanks  to  their  unselfish  devotion,  I  succeeded  in 
weathering  the  trial  without  more  serious  loss  than  that 
of  time.  There  were  not  many  Americans  in  Gottingen 
during  the  winter,  only  five  besides  myself,  and  four  of 
the  five  were  new  comers  from  over  the  water  and  con- 

*  The  foundation  for  the  trouble  was  probably  laid  the  year  before,  by 
excessive  indulgence  in  Alpine  climbing  and  other  violent  exercises. 

*9 


102  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES, 

sequently  had  to  look  after  themselves.  Still,  they  did 
what  they  could.  My  German  friends  also  visited  me 
regularly.  But  my  chief  comforters  were  John  I.  Harvey 
(from  Virginia),  David  Swan  (from  Scotland),  and  Paul 
'Chris'iofle,  the  son  of  the  founder  and  at  present  head  of 
the  well  known  house  of  Christofle  &  Cie.,  in  Paris. 
Harvey  dropped  in  at  my  rooms  regularly  every  morning 
and  afternoon ;  the  other  two,  who  were  generally  busy 
in  the  laboratory  during  the  day,  came  in  the  evening. 
As  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  let  myself  be  entertained  in 
the  best  way  possible,  my  room  became  a  sort  of  head- 
quarters for  any  one  who  might  have  an  idle  hour,  and 
was  ready  to  take  a  smoke  or  a  hand  at  ecarte  or  "  sixty- 
six." 

From  beginning  to  end,  the  winter  of  1862-3  was  f°r 
me  a  strange  episode.  Thousands  of  miles  from  home, 
without  a  single  person  who  was  directly  responsible  for 
my  welfare,  in  a  foreign  land,  practically  helpless,  I 
nevertheless  succeeded  in  outliving  the  trial  uninjured. 
Everybody  who  came  in  contact  with  me  seemed  to  take 
an  interest  in  me,  the  owner  of  the  house  and  the  ser- 
vants were  obliging  and  good-natured,  and  my  friends, 
especially  the  three  whom  I  have  mentioned,  left  literally 
no  wish  ungratified.  Should  these  lines  ever  reach  them, 
I  hope  that  they  will  not  be  displeased  at  such  a  public 
acknowledgment.  It  is  the  only  way  that  I  can  find  of 
expressing  the  sense  of  gratitude  still  undimmed  for 
valuable  hours  spent  and  services  paid  at  the  altar  of 
friendship. 


IDLESSE.  103 


Soon  after  New  Year,  the  surgeon  pronounced  me 
cured,  and  gave  me  permission  to  go  out  to  dinner. 
The  prospect  of  escaping  from  the  confinement  of  four 
walls,  even  if  only  for  an  hour  a  day,  was  enchanting; 
but  the  permission,  when  I  attempted  to  act  upon  it,  was 
almost  a  mockery.  The  long  continued  bandaging  had 
relaxed  the  muscles  so  much  that  I  could  scarcely  stand. 
For  the  first  day  or  two  it  seemed  as  if  all  my  time  and 
energy  were  consumed  in  limping  up  and  down  the  two 
flights  of  stairs  between  the  room  and  the  street. 

Thus  the  winter  passed  in  slow  recuperation,  and 
spring  came  once  again.  I  met  it  with  feelings  very  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  the  year  before.  Seven  months  had 
gone  for  nothing,  or  almost  nothing.  I  had  of  course 
learned  some  additional  German,  but  the  gain  was  slight 
in  proportion  to  the  time.  My  reading  had  been  broken 
up,  and  the  plans  of  study  that  I  had  formed  in  the 
summer  were  not  even  begun.  Everything  in  a  univer- 
sity goes  by  semesters ;  to  lose  half  a  semester  is  to 
lose  all.  Even  had  my  health  permitted,  I  could  not 
have  begun  any  course  of  study  after  New  Year.  There 
was  nothing  left  but  to  wait  for  the  next  semester,  and  in 
the  meanwhile  recover  all  the  strength  possible. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
Removal  to  Berlin  —  Umsatteln. 

Y  the  close  of  the  winter  semester  (the  middle  of 
March,  1863),  my  health  and  spirits  were  restored. 
One  or  two  friends  kept  me  company  in  a  visit  of  a  fort- 
night in  Berlin.  I  had  seen  the  capital  of  Prussia  before, 
for  a  few  days  in  the  summer  of  1862,  while  making  a 
sort  of  flying  trip  through  a  part  of  North  Germany. 
But  it  had  been  then  the  saison  morte,  and  the  city  pre- 
sented anything  but  an  inviting  aspect.  It  was  hot, 
deserted,  and  dusty  as  only  Berlin  in  July  can  be. 
During  the  present  visit,  on  the  contrary,  the  city  was  all 
life  and  bustle.  For  three  or  four  days  there  was  inces- 
sant parading  and  flying  of  flags.  It  was  the  occasion 
of  the  dedication  of  Bliicher's  monument  and  the  com- 
memoration of  Prussia's  uprising  fifty  years  before,  in 
1813,  against  the  first  Napoleon.  The  display  of  troops, 
especially  of  cavalry,  was  very  handsome,  but  the  most 
interesting  event  in  the  ceremonies  was  the  parade  of  the 
veterans  of  '13.  Tfte  survivors  of  the  German  War  of 
Independence,  wearers  of  the  Iron  Cross,  had  been 
invited  to  Berlin  at  the  express  request  of  the  King,  and 
many  thousands  had  responded  to  the  call.  Every 
veteran  had  been  declared  by  special  orders  to  rank  as 


REMOVAL  TO  BERLIN—  UMSATTELN.         105 

officer  for  the  while  and  to  be  entitled  to  an  officer's 
salute.  The  sentries  on  guard  at  the  gates  and  other 
prominent  points  in  the  city  had  consequently  little  rest ; 
it  was  one  incessant  presenting  arms.  In  the  grand 
parade  unter  den  Linden,  the  veterans  marched  in  a  body, 
by  companies,  in  between  the  dismounted  Gardes  du 
Corps  >  and,  as  well  as  I  can  remember,  the  Garde-Fusi- 
liere.  It  was  an  impressive  sight,  to  contrast  the  feeble, 
tottering  gait,  the  old,  battered  and  outlandish  looking 
uniforms,  the  broken  ranks  of  the  men  of  1813  with  the 
solid  tread  and  massive  forms  of  the  Body-Guard,  or  the 
quick,  lithe  swing  of  the  Fusiliers.  On  that  occasion 
and  during  my  subsequent  stay  in  Berlin,  I  received  an 
impression  of  Prussia's  military  power  that  later  events 
have  only  confirmed.  Even  the  best  troops  of  France, 
the  Paris  garrison,  which  I  had  seen  some  time  before, 
were  far  from  being  the  powerful,  well  disciplined  men 
of  the  Prussian  Guard.  Any  one  who  visited  Berlin  in 
1863  and  1864,  at  the  inauguration  of  the  Army  Reform, 
could  not  fail  to  be  struck  as  I  was  with  the  energy,  I 
might  say  the  agony  of  preparation.  Yet  no  one  could 
have  predicted  what  it  meant  or  what  it  was  to  accom- 
plish only  three  years  later.  The  air  was  full  of  military 
bustle,  and  the  city  resembled  a  huge  camp  even  more 
than  it  does  now. 

For  various  reasons  I  decided  to  remove  to  Berlin  for 
the  coming  summer-semester.  As  the  reader  can  readily 
understand,  Gottingen,  once  pleasant  and  inviting,  had 
become  associated  with  disagreeable  remembrances  of 


106  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

illness  and  confinement.  A  change  of  air  might  do  my 
health  good;  besides,  being  about  to  alter  my  plan 
of  studies,  or  rather  to  adopt  a  plan  where  none  had 
previously  existed,  I  deemed  it  only  proper  to  start  de 
novo,  by  changing  as  well  my  place  of  residence. 

After  some  hesitation,  I  had  resolved  to  study  law  with 
a  view  of  obtaining,  if  possible,  the  degree  of  doctor. 
Three  semesters  had  already  gone,  one  in  learning  the 
language,  one  in  studying  its  literature,  the  third  in 
enforced  idleness.  It  was  now  time  to  settle  upon 
something  definite  in  the  way  of  study.  A  German 
university,  I  had  discovered,  did  not  pretend  to  give 
a  so  called  general  education.'  There  were  lectures  on 
every  conceivable  subject,  on  theology,  medicine,  the 
natural  sciences,  philology,  history,  but  there  was  no  gen- 
eral curriculum ;  the  university  evidently  expected  each 
student  to  take  up  one  particular  line  of  study  and  follow 
it  to  the  end.  I  selected  the  law,  as  being  the  one  most 
suited  to  my  taste  and  disposition. 

I  obtained  from  the  University-secretary  the  necessary 
Abgangszeugniss  (honorable  dismissal),  and  removed  to 
Berlin  about  the  middle  of  April.  The  ceremony  of 
re-matriculation  was  very  simple.  Coming  as  a  regular 
student  from  another  German  university,  I  had  only  to 
deposit  the  Abgangszeugniss  with  the  Berlin  secretary,  pay 
a  small  fee,  and  give  the  customary  pledge,  the  hand- 
shake, to  the  Rector.  I  then  matriculated  in  the  legal 
faculty.  This  transferring  one's  self  from  one  faculty  to 
another  is  called  expressively  by  the  students  Umsatteln^ 


,    REMOVAL   TO  BERLIN— UMSATTELN.         107 

changing  saddles.  One  can  meet  students  who  have 
performed  the  operation  three  or  four  times ;  failing  in 
every  attempt  at  a  degree,  they  are  content  to  drift  along 
from  semester  to  semester  and  bear  the  sarcastic  title  of 
bemooste  Haupter,  moss-grown  heads. 

The  Berlin  university  at  that  time  was  in  its  glory. 
The  medical  faculty  was  uncommonly  strong.  In  theol- 
ogy there  were  such  men  as  Dorner,  Hengstenberg, 
Niedner,  and  Twesten,  in  philosophy  Trendelenburg, 
Helfferich,  Michelet,  in  the  natural  sciences  Dove,  Rose, 
Braun,  in  political  economy  Helwing  and  Hanssen,  in 
history  Droysen,  Ranke,  Jaffe,  Kopke,  Kiepert,  in  phil- 
ology Steinthal,  Bopp,  Bdckh,  Bekker,  Haupt,  Weber. 
Many  of  these  illustrious  men  have  been  called  to  their 
rest ;  their  places  have  been  taken,  we  can  scarcely  say 
filled,  by  their  successors.  In  law  there  were  Bruns, 
Gneist,  Holtzendorff,  Rudorff,  Richter,  Beseler,  Homeyer, 
Heffter,  and  many  others ;  I  have  named  only  the  most 
illustrious.  Gneist  is  the  well  known  politician  and  lead- 
ing debater  in  the  Prussian  Parliament  and  the  Imperial 
Diet.  Holtzendorff  is  now  professor  in  Munich ;  Rudorff, 
and,  I  believe,  Homeyer  and  Richter  are  deceased.  The 
brightest  stars  of  the  Berlin  legal  faculty  —  Savigny  and 
Puchta  —  had  already  set;  in  fact,  as  I  afterward  dis- 
covered, I  might  have  done  better  for  the  first  semester 
or  two  by  going  to  Heidelberg,  where  Vangerow  was  then 
in  his  prime.  Yet  the  loss  was  not  great.  In  fact  I  may 
say,  once  for  all,  that  a  student  cannot  go  very  far  out 
of  his  way  in  selecting  any  one  of  the  leading  univer 


io8  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

sities.  Two  of  the  most  delightful  and  most  profitable 
months  of  my  life  were  once  passed  in  even  a  very  small 
university,  the  name  and  fame  of  which  have  scarcely 
reached  America.  I  mean  Marburg,  about  half  way 
between  Frankfort  and  Cassel.  The  number  of  students, 
all  told,  did  not  exceed  four  hundred,  and  the  profes- 
sors were  correspondingly  few.  Yet  I  was  surprised  at 
the  comparatively  large  number  of  eminent  men  and  the 
general  breadth  of  culture.  The  reader  may  be  assured 
that  the  smaller  universities,  such  as  Marburg,  Rostock, 
Greifswald,  Tubingen,  differ  from  the  larger  ones  in 
extent,  in  quantity,  rather  than  in  quality.  Unless  the 
student  be  engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  some  very  limited 
specialty,  he  can  do  well  almost  anywhere. 

To  decide  upon  the  study  of  the  law  is  one  thing ;  to 
carry  out  the  decision  is  another.  By  consulting  the  list 
—  still  in  my  possession  —  of  Berlin  lectures  for  the  sum- 
mer of  1863,  I  find  that  there  were  announced  no  less 
than  59  courses  of  lectures  on  legal  topics,  covering  183 
hours  per  week!  That  the  reader,  if  of  a  legal  turn 
of  mind,  may  form  some  idea  of  what  a  legal  faculty  in 
Germany  is  and  what  it  accomplishes,  I  give  the  list  entire : 

Encyclopczdy  and  Methodology  of  the  Science  of  Law,  by 
Professors  Heydemann  and  Holtzendorff  and  Dr.  Schmidt. 

Naturrecht,  or  Philosophy  of  Law,  by  Professor  Heyde- 
mann. 

Institutes,  by  Professors  Bruns  and  Gneist. 

History  and  Archaeology  of  the  Roman  Law,  the  same. 

History  of  Civil  Procedure  among  tfic  Romans ^  the  s.ime. 


R-EMO  VAL  TO  BERLIN—  UMSA  TTELN.         109 

Institutes,  by  Drs.  Rivier  and  Degenkolb. 

Select  Cases  in  Roman  Law,  explained  by  Dr.  Degen- 
kolb. 

Pandects,  by  Professor  Rudorff. 

Erbrecht  (Doctrine  of  Inheritance),  by  Dr.  Baron. 

Pandects  and  Erbrecht,  by  Dr.  Witte. 

Select  Passages  from  the  Pandects,  explained  by  Profes- 
sor Rudorff  and  Dr.  Witte. 

JDe  Sohitionibus  (D.  xlvi,  3),  explained  by  Dr.  Schmidt. 

Practical  Exercises  in  Roman  Law  (a  sort  of   Moot 
Court),  by  Dr.  Baron. 

Ecclesiastical  Law,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  by  Professor 
Richter  and  Drs.  Friedberg  and  Hinschius. 

Law  of  Matrimony,  by  Dr.  Friedberg. 

Practical  Exercises  in  Ecclesiastical  Law,  by  Professor 
Richter  and  Drs.  Friedberg  and  Hinschius. 

History  of   German  Constitutional  Law,  by  Professors 
Beseler  and  Daniels  and  Dr.  Kuhns. 

History  of  the  Decline  of  the  Roman-German  Empire,  by    ' 
Professor  Lancizolle. 

German  Common  Law,  by  Professor  Homeyer. 

Law  of  Promissory  Notes,  by  Dr.  Kiihns. 

Practical  Exercises  in  German  Law,  by  Professor  Beseler. 

Public  and  Private  Rights  of   German  Sovereigns,  by 
Professors  Beseler  and  Holtzendorff. 

German  Constitutional  Law,  by  Professor  Daniels. 

Church  and  State,  by  Dr.  Friedberg. 

Practical  Exercises  in  State  Law,  by  Professor  'Holt- 
zendorff. 
10 


no  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

International  Law,  by  Professors  Heffter  and  Holt- 
zendorff. 

Civil  Procedure,  according  to  the  Common  Law  of  Ger- 
many and  the  Prussian  Code,  by  Professors  Heffter  and 
Bruns. 

The  same,  including  also  the  Code  Napoleon  (for  the 
Rhine  provinces),  by  Dr.  Hinschius. 

Practical  Exercises  in  Procedure,  by  Dr.  Hinschius. 

Criminal  Law,  by  Professors  Gneist  and  Berner. 

Criminal  Procedure,  by  Professors  Heffter,  Gneist  and 
Berner. 

Practical  Exercises  in  Criminal  Law,  by  Professor 
Berner. 

The  Death-Penalty,  by  Professor  Holtzendorff. 

Penitentiary  System,  the  same. 

Prussian  Code,  by  Professors  Daniels  and  Heydemann. 

Special  Questions  under  the  Prussian  Code,  by  Professor 
Heydemann. 

Doctrine  of  Inheritance  in  Prussia,  by  Dr.  Bornemann. 

History  of  the  Code  Napoleon,  by  Dr.  Rivier. 

Franco-Rhenish  Rights  of  Real  Property  between  Hus- 
band and  Wife,  by  Professor  Daniels. 

English  Constitutional  History,  by  Professor  Gneist. 

The  total  number  of  professors  and  doctors  (Privat- 
docenteri)  on  the  list  is  twenty-one. 

A  few  qualifying  and  explanatory  remarks  will  not  be 
superfluous.  In  the  first  place,  not  all  the  lectures 
announced,  especially  at  a  university  like  Berlin,  are 
actually  read.  The  professor,  or  Privat-docent,  upon 


REMO  VAL  TO  BERLIN—  UMSA  TTELN.         1 1 1 

whom  has  been  conferred  the  venias  docendi,  the  privilege 
of  lecturing,  is  held  to  announce  at  least  one  publice  each 
semester.  But  if  auditors  fail  to  present  themselves  in 
sufficient  numbers,  as  not  infrequently  happens,  the 
course  is  not  delivered,  the  lecturer  is  exonerated.  This 
may  seem  an  odd  procedure,  but  the  explanation  is  not 
remote.  A  German  university  faculty  consists  of  profes- 
sors (either  regular  or  extraordinary),  and  Privat-docenten, 
who  are  nothing  more  than  candidates  for  professorships. 
The  university  looks  to  its  professors  for  bearing  the 
burden  of  instruction  ;  the  Privat-docenten  keep  the  pro- 
fessors up  to  the  mark  by  competing  with  them.  A 
Privat-docent  is  free  to  lecture  on  any  topic  connected 
with  his  department,  even  although  a  course  of  lectures 
on  that,  same  topic  may  have  been  announced  by  a  pro- 
fessor. The  reader  will  observe  that  the  above  list  con- 
tains several  instances  of  such  direct  competition.  But 
ordinarily  the  Privat-docent  prefers  to  compete  indirectly, 
as  it  were,  by  reading  on  some  special  topic  that  is  not 
taken  up  by  any  of  the  professors.  These  special-topic 
lectures  are  the  germs  of  future  essays  and  monographs ; 
after  the  Privat-docent  has  worked  his  lectures  into  the 
proper  shape  by  repeated  readings,  he  publishes  them  in 
book-form  with  a  view  to  wider  reputation  and  a  "  call." 
But  if  the  topic  is  too  remote,  too  special,  the  lecturer 
will  not  find  hearers.  In  fact,  a  professor,  or  even  a 
Privat-docent^  whose  'reputation  is  already  established,  and 
whose  time  is  occupied  with  privatim  lectures,  will  pur- 
posely select  a  very  special  topic,  so  as  not  to  attract  hear- 


ri2  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

ers  and  yet  comply  with  the  regulations.*  On  general 
principles,  then,  I  should  say  that  twenty  per  cent  of  the 
lectures  announced  in  the  above  list  were  not  read.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  reader  should  bear  in  mind  that  it 
was  the  summer  semester,  which  is  always  and  everywhere 
"  lighter  "  than  the  winter.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that 
we  should  get  the  actual  amount  of  winter  work  by 
restoring  the  twenty  per  cent. 

The  study  of  law  in  Germany  is  treated  seriously. 
No  one  is  admitted  to  the  bar  or  to  the  bench  who  has 
not  been  through  the  full  university  course.  This  of 
itself  presupposes  the  gymnasial  course.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  every  practitioner  and  every  judge  down 
to  the  humblest  justice  of  the  peace  has  had  a  thorough 
classical  and.  legal  education.  Can  we  wonder,  then,  at 
the  pride  with  which  Germany  points  to  her  judicial 
system,  and  the  scarcely  concealed  disdain  with  which 
she  looks  down  upon  the  uncertainty  and  circumlocution 
of  the  English  and  the  American  ?  It  is  not  my  purpose 
to  draw  invidious  comparisons.  It  must  be  admitted 
that  our  best  judges  and  our  best  lawyers  will  compare 
favorably  with  those  of  any  land.  But  the  world  is  not 
made  up  of  best  men.  Allowances  are  to  be  made  for 
respectable  mediocrity.  Here  it  is  that  the  superiority  of 
the  German  system,  as  a  system,  over  our  want  of  system 
becomes  manifest.  That  system  is  briefly  as  follows.  A 
young  German  wishing  to  fit  himself  for  the  profession 

*  The  terms /«£//cr,/riz'fl/j>«  and  privatissime  have  been  explained  in  Chap 
ter  III. 


REMOVAL  TO  BERLIN—  UMSATTELN.         113 

must  first  acquire  the  broad  general  culture  of  the  gymna- 
sium.   In  the  next  place,  he  must  attend  the  university  at 
least  three  full  years,  six  half-years,  and  hear  certain  pre- 
scribed lectures,  say  eighteen  or  twenty  in  all.     He  need 
not  hear  them  in  a*hy  prescribed  order,  but  he  must  hear 
them  at  some  time.     He  need  not  pass  the  university 
examination,  but  he  must  pass  the  Staats-examen,  which 
is  a  serious  matter.     This  state-examination  is  conducted 
after  a  peculiarly  German  fashion.     The  candidate  pre- 
sents himself  to  the  Court  of  Appeals  of  the  state  or 
province,  bringing  with  him  his  gymnasial  and  university 
certificates.     The   court  assigns  to  him  two  schriftlichc 
Arbeiten,  that  is,  two  cases  which  have  actually  come  up 
on  appeal,  and  upon  which  he  must  give  a  reference. 
He  gets  facsimiles  of  all  the  papers  in  each  case,  from 
the  original  summons  down  to  the  final  appeal  in  error, 
and  also  all  the  evidence.     In   his  reference  he   must 
review  every  point  taken  on  both  sides,  whether  of  law  or 
of  fact,  whether  controverted  or  not.     In  short,  he  must 
subject  each  case  to  an  exhaustive  theoretical  analysis, 
and  submit  his  reports  in  writing.     This  is  a  labor  of 
several  months.     After  the  schriftliche  Arbeiten  have  been 
read  and  approved  by  the  Court,  the  candidate  is  ad- 
mitted to  an  oral  examination,  which  lasts  from  two  to 
three  hours.     This  second  ordeal  over,  he  becomes  an 
Auditor.     That  is  to  say,  he  is  assigned  to  some  one  of 
the  higher  courts  (Obergerichte)  as  a  compulsory  listener 
to  all  the  proceedings  for  two  years.     At  the  end  of  the 

(TWO  years,  he  has  his  choice  either  to  pass  his  second^ 
*IO 


H4  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

examination  then  and  be  admitted  to  practice,  o  r  to  wait 
two  years  longer  as  Assessor,  that  is,  as  one  who  sits  on 
the  bench  with  the  judges  but  has  no  vote,  and  pass  a 
final  examination  as  a  candidate  for  judicial  appointment. 
A  German  state,  it  is  evident,  does  not  regard  either 
the  practice  or  the  administration  of  the  law  as  some- 
thing to  be  "picked  up."  While  it  is  perfectly  true  that 
no  amount  of  teaching  and  examining  will  make  a  lawyer 
of  a  man  whom  nature  intended  for  something  else,  yet 
it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  the  German  system 
works  admirably  in  suppressing  shysters,  pettifogers,  and 
low-lived  individuals  of  all  sorts.  One  can  not  take 
the  first  step  toward  entering  the  profession  without 
having  acquired  some  substantial  knowledge,  some  ele- 
ments of  culture  and  breeding.  The  law  itself  in  Ger- 
many has  its  defects,  obvious  and  grave  ones ;  but  these 
spring  from  the  political  and  social  organization  of  the 
country,  and  are  not  due  especially  to  the  bench  or  the 
bar.  The  whole  tendency  of  the  German  system  is  to 
develop  a  body  of  enlightened,  upright  jurists,  and  to 
make  the  course  of  justice  prompt  and  inexpensive. 
The  judges,  holding  their  office  by  royal  appointment 
and  utterly  indifferent  to  so  called  public  opinion,  watch 
the  lawyers  very  sharply  and  compel  them  to  expedite 
matters.  Besides,  they  regard  themselves  more  as  equi- 
table umpires  than  as  judges  in  our  sense.  They  try  as 
much  as  possible  to  bring  about  compromises  and  go  far 
more  than  our  judges  into  the  real  merits  of  the  case. 
A  judge,  according  to  the  English  or  American  system, 


REMO  VAL  TO  BERLIN—  UMSA  TTELN.          1 1 5 

contents  himself  with  passing  his  opinion  on  points  that 
have  been  expressly  raised;  in  Germany  he  will  often 
take  cognizance  of  points  that  have  not  been  raised.  In  \ 
other  words,  he  regards  the  equitable  rights  of  the  client 
as  the  main  thing,  and  is  not  disposed  to  let  them  be 
sacrificed  through  the  laches  or  ignorance  of  the  at- 
torney.* 

Having  thus  given  a  brief  outline  of  the  way  in 
which  law  is  studied  in  Germany,  I  must  say  a  few  words 
about  the  substance  of  the  instruction,  reserving  a  fuller 
discussion  of  it  for  a  subsequent  chapter.  The  law  of 
Germany  has  a  threefold  origin :  it  is  either  Roman,  or 
German,  or  the  product  of  recent  legislation.  By  Roman 
law  is  meant  that  set  of  rules  and  principles  which  is 
contained  in  the  Corpus  juris  civilis,  the  codification 
made  at  Constantinople  in  the  sixth  century  by  order 
of  the  emperor  Justinian.  To  explain  how  the  corpus 
juris  came  to  be  adopted  in  Germany  would  lead  me  too 
far  out  of  my  way.  The  adoption  grew  out  of  the  inti- 
mate political  relations  existing  between  Germany  and 
Italy,  where  the  old  Roman  Law,  as  Savigny  has  shown, 
had  never  gone  out  of  use.  It  was  begun  under  the 
Hohenstaufen  or  Swabian  dynasty,  but  proceeded  very 
slowly,  and  was  not  thoroughly  completed  even  at  the 
advent  of  the  Reformation.  Its  career  was  a  prolonged 
struggle  between  the  "  illiterate  "  law  of  the  folk  and  the 
subtleties  of  the  clerks  and  doctors  at  the  seats  of  learn- 


*  It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that,  in  civil  suits,  the  judges  exercise  the  func- 
tions of  the  jury. 


n6  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

ing.  A  somewhat  similar  phenomenon,  but  attended 
with  very  different  results,  may  be  observed  in  the  course 
of  English  Common  Law.  The  Canonists  and  Civilians 
of  Oxford  tried  to  introduce  the  corpus  juris  into  Eng- 
land, and  came  nearer  to  success  than  is  commonly 
known.  In  Germany,  the  passages  of  the  corpus  juris 
not  annotated  by  the  Glossators  of  the  Italian  school 
are  not  regarded  as  received.  But  these  are  few  in 
number.  Practically,  the  corpus  juris  may  be  said  to 
have  been  adopted  entire  by  the  common  consent  and 
common  practice  of  the  German  mediaeval  courts,  so 
that  the  presumption  is  in  its  favor.  Whoever  attempts 
to  controvert  the  applicability  of  any  one  annotated 
passage  must  show  either  that  it  has  been  specifically 
rejected  or  that  it  has  been  altered  or  abrogated.  Even 
in  countries  that  have  a  modern  code  of  civil  law,  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  Roman  law  is  regarded  as 
indispensable,  inasmuch  as  that  law  is  still  applicable  in 
cases  not  provided  for  by  the  code.*  The  German  law, 
i.  e.,  the  law  of  German  origin,  has  chiefly  to  do  with 
marital  and  domestic  relations,  and  the  rights  and  obli- 
gations of  real  property,  more  exactly,  entailed  and  peas- 
ant estates.  But  all  general  ideas  on  legal  topics,  the 
entire  legal  nomenclature,  the  theory  of  contracts,  pay- 
\  ment,  time,  conditions,  everything  in  short  that  is  not 
limited  or  local  is  derived  from  the  Roman  law.  A 
complete  and  accurate  understanding  of  the  principles 

*  The  older  parts  of  Prussia,  e.  g.,  are  administered  according  to  the  code 
introduced  in  the  last  century  ;  the  Rhiae  provinces  have  the  Code  Napoleon. 


REMOVAL  TO  BERLIN—  UMSATTELN.         117 

embodied  in  the  corpus  juris  is  therefore  justly  considered 
as  the  basis  of  the  lawyer's  education.  The  Canon  Law, 
i.  e.,  the  principles  and  rulings  embodied  in  the  corpus 
juris  canonici,  or  body  of  mediaeval  Roman  Catholic  law, 
has  not  been  adopted  to  the  same  extent  as  the  corpus 
juris  civilis.  Although  the  university  title  of  LL.  D.  is 
doctor  juris  utrinsque  (sc.  tarn  romani  quam  canonici), 
the  Canon  Law  as  such  is  no  longer  taught  in  Ger- 
many. The  corpus  juris  canonici  embodies  the  rules 
that  governed  the  mediaeval  ecclesiastical  courts  during 
their  existence.  As  those  courts  had  cognizance  of 
everything  relating  to  the  church  and  church  property, 
to  marriage  and  divorce,  crimes  committed  by  or  against 
the  clergy,  the  sanctity  of  the  oath,  etc.,  their  jurisdic- 
tion covered  many  cases  that  modern  usage  has  vindi- 
cated for  the  secular  courts  exclusively.  The  terms 
Canon  Law  and  Modern  Ecclesiastical  Law,  therefore, 
do  not  coincide ;  the  former  is  the  law,  whether  spiritual 
or  secular  in  its  nature,  administered  by  the  old  spiritual 
courts ;  the  latter  is  the  law  now  applicable  to  spiritual 
matters  exclusively,  whether  that  law  be  derived  from 
the  corpus  juris  canonici  or  from  modern  statutes  and 
concordates,  whether  it  be  Roman  Catholic  or  Protes- 
tant law.  The  universities  of  Germany  teach  at  the 
present  time  only  Ecclesiastical  Law.  The  Canon  Law 
made  its  influence  upon  Roman  and  German  law  felt 
chiefly  in  practice  and  procedure,  and  most  especially  in 
the  theory  of  evidence.  All  these  matters,  however, 


Il8  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

have  been  thoroughly  revised  and  put  upon  a  new  basis 
by  the  modern  codes  of  procedure. 

As  regards  the  Roman  law  more  particularly,  the 
course  of  instruction  embraces  ordinarily  four  sets  of 
lectures,  which  I  give  by  their  German  names  :  Institu- 
tionen,  Rechtsgeschichte,  Pandecten,  Erbrecht.  The  Insti- 
tutionen  are  a  condensed  exposition  of  the  outlines  of  the 
Roman  law.  The  order  followed  is  usually  that  of  the 
Institutes  of  Justinian,  and  the  object  of  the  course  is, 
not  the  exhaustive  statement  of  all  the  principles  in  all 
their  details,  but  rather  the  historic  development  of  the 
leading  principles,  from  the  earliest  times  of  the  Republic, 
through  the  Empire,  to  the  age  of  Justinian.  In  other 
words,  the  organic  growth  of  the  Roman  law  during 
seven  or  eight  centuries  forms  the  substance  of  the 
course  called  Institutional.  The  Rechtsgeschichte,  or  Aeus- 
sere  Rechtsgeschichte,  as  it  is  more  exactly  called,  is  a 
history  of  Roman  legislation  rather  than  of  Roman  law. 
It  treats  of  the  various  phases  of  the  Roman  constitution, 
the  growth  of  the  plebs,  the  power  of  the  Senate,  the 
scope  of  the  senatus  consiilta,  the  functions  of  the  praetor 
and  the  praetorian  edict,  the  rescripts  and  decrees  of  the 
emperors,  the  responsa  prudcntium,  the  history  of  Jus- 
tinian's codification.  The  Rechtsgeschichte,  then,  aims  at 
acquainting  the  student  with  the  various  agents  and 
means  at  work  in  producing  the  body  of  the  law.  The 
Pandecten  are  in  one  sense  merely  the  Institutionen  ex- 
panded ;  in  another  sense,  they  are  quite  different.  The 
professor  who  lectures  on  the  Pandects,  taking  for 


REMO  VAL  TO  BERLIN—  UMSA  TTELN.         119 

granted  that  his  hearers  are  already  familiar  with  the 
Institutionen  and  Rechtsgeschichte,  develops  the  Roman 
law  as  a  matter  of  scientific  theory.  He  does  not  follow 
the  order  adopted  by  Justinian  in  his  Liber  Digestorum. 
He  seeks  to  define  law  in  general,  to  define  persons, 
things,  the  rights  of  persons,  family  relations,  the  rights 
of  things,  modes  of  acquiring  and  losing  property,  modes 
of  entering  into,  suspending,  and  annulling  contracts, 
and  the  like,  fortifying  each  position  as  he  goes  by  cita- 
tions from  the  corpus  juris.  The  treatment  of  Erbrecht 
(the  doctrine  of  inheritance)  as  a  separate  course  is 
purely  arbitrary ;  it  belongs  rightfully  to  the  Pandecten. 
But  inasmuch  as  it  is  the  most  complicated  and  difficult 
part  of  the  whole,  it  is  more  conveniently  treated  by 
itself.  Vangerow,  however,  read  it  in  his  course  on  the 
Pandects. 

I  cannot  revert  to  my  semester  in  Berlin  with  much 
satisfaction.  The  fault  was  not  with  the  university  or  the 
professors,  but  lay  in  myself.  I  committed  the  mistake 
of  attempting  to  begin  a  new  study  in  a  large  city.  One 
who  has  advanced  beyond  the  rudiments  and  has  a  clear 
idea  of  what  he  really  needs  and  what  he  can  dis- 
pense with,  will  derive  benefit  from  the  concourse  of 
intellect  and  character  in  a  capital  like  Berlin.  But  the 
beginner,  I  am  persuaded,  cannot  do  better  than  by 
remaining  in  a  small  town  for  a  term  or  two  at  least.  He 
loses  less  time  in  finding  out  things,  in  making  acquaint- 
ances among  those  who  are  pursuing  the  same  study,  and 
in  catching  the  spirit  of  that  study. 


120  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

After  pondering  over  the  distracting  list  of  lectures 
given  above,  and  getting  the  advice  of  one  or  two  ac- 
quaintances to  whom  I  had  letters  of  introduction,  I 
made  the  following  selection  of  lectures:  Institutionen 
and  Rechtsgeschichte,  by  Professor  Gneist,  and  Encyclopedic 
und  Methodologie  der  Rechtswissenschaft,  by  Professor 
Holtzendorff.  As  the  reader  will  readily  understand,  the 
lectures  were  "  all  Greek  "  to  me.  The  German  was  not 
difficult,  and  both  lecturers  spoke  slowly  and  clearly 
enough  to  let  me  take  full  notes.  But  the  subject  itself 
was  a  strange  world  of  terms  and  ideas.  I  forced  myself 
.  to  write  down  paragraph  after  paragraph  without  being 
able  to  see  into  the  connection  or  practical  bearings  of 
the  whole.  Fortunately  I  caught  up  a  hint  thrown  out 
by  Professor  Gneist  in  one  of  his  lectures,  and  purchased 
a  copy  of  Mommsen's  Roman  History.  Here  at  least 
was  something  that  I  could  understand.  Although  my 
recollections  of  early  Roman  history,  the  fabulous 
dynasty  of  kings,  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  the  cen- 

^ 

turial  constitutions  and  the  like  were  as  shadowy  and 
imperfect  as  those  of  the  average  American  graduate, 
still  it  was  scarcely  possible  not  to  learn  much  from  a 
master  like  Mommsen.  I  read  through  the  two  large 
volumes  of  the  original  with  great  interest  and  care. 
Then  it  was  that  something  like  light  began  to  shine 
upon  me,  that  I  caught  something  like  an  insight  into  the 
growth  of  that  wonderful  organism  called  the  Roman 
Constitution  and  the  Roman  State.  Using  Mommsen  as 
a  running  commentary,  I  succeeded  in  understanding 


REMOVAL  TO  BERLIN—  UMSATTELN.         121 

my  lectures  after  a  fashion.  I  purchased  also  Gneist's 
edition  of  the  Institutes  of  Gaius  and  Justinian,  but  could 
make  little  out  of  the  book.  The  Latin  was  easy  enough, 
but  I  had  no  appreciation  of  the  technical  terms  and  no 
friend  to  whom  to  go  for  enlightenment. 

The  term  was  drawing  to  its  close.  I  was  threatened 
with  a  return  of  my  ailment  of  the  previous  winter,  and 
was  generally  discouraged.  In  view  of  the  many  old 
friends  still  left  in  Gottingen,  I  thought  it  best  to  spend 
at  least  the  long  vacation  there  and  obtain  advice  for  the 
future.  I  thereupon  left  Berlin  before  the  end  of  the 
semester.  This  was  the  turning  point  in  my  university 
course. 

II 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Wiesbaden  —  The  Institutes. 

By  the  advice  of  the  physician  who  had  attended  me 
during  the  winter,  I  was  induced  to  try  the  baths  at  Wies- 
baden. The  climate,  the  waters,  the  easy,  quiet  life  at 
this  celebrated  watering-place,  wrought  in  three  weeks  a 
perfect  cure.  Were  the  present  a  book  on  German  life 
in  general,  I  should  take  the  liberty  of  describing  fully 
the  baths  of  Wiesbaden ;  for  they  deserve  their  reputation 
as  the  Mecca  of  rheumatic  pilgrims,  and  the  town  and 
neighborhood  are,  upon  the  whole,  the  most  agreeable  of 
German  Curorte.  But  I  do  not  consider  myself  author- 
ized to  transgress  the  strict  limits  of  the  subject,  which  is 
the  description  of  university  life. 

After  a  brief  but  most  delightful  trip  down  the  Rhine 
to  Cologne  and  back,  and  a  run  over  to  Heidelberg  and 
Munich,  I  returned  to  Gbttingen  about  the  end  of  August. 
There  were  six  weeks  left  in  which  to  make  ready  for  the 
coming  winter  semester.  But  to  what  should  I  turn  my 
attention,  and  how  should  I  make  the  most  of  the  time  ? 
While  in  this  quandary,  good  fortune  led  me  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  a  man  who  was  to  become  my  steadfast 
friend  and  ready  counselor  for  the  next  eighteen  months. 
To  him  more  than  to  any  one  else  am  I  indebted  for  sue- 


WIESBADEN—  THE  INSTITUTES.  123 

cess  at  last.  One  afternoon,  at  a  garden-concert,  I  was 
presented  to  Dr.  Maxen,  Privat-docent  in  the  legal  faculty, 
a  stout,  bluff,  but  genial  and  intelligent  man  in  the  thirties. 
Our  conversation  soon  shook  off  all  idle  formality. 
Emboldened  by  the  signs  of  friendly  interest  on  his  part, 
I  told  him  my  story ;  how  I  had  made  an  attempt  in  Ber- 
lin and  failed ;  how  much,  or  rather  how  little,  I  had 
done ;  what  a  maze  of  doubt  and  ignorance  I  was  in, 
even  as  to  the  best  books  to  read.  At  all  of  which  he 
laughed  good-naturedly.  "  Well,  said  he,  I  do  not  think 
that  you  have  done  much  worse  than  other  students  in 
their  first  semester.  Rome,  you  know,  was  not  built  in  a 
day.  What  you  need  is  to  read  certain  books  well,  and 
especially  to  go  at  the  Quellen*  Let  me  draw  up  a 
scheme  of  work  for  you.  In  the  first  place,  read  through 
Marezoll's  Institutionen.  The  book  is  not  worth  much, 
but  it  will  familiarize  you  with  terms  and  definitions,  and 
the  general  groundplan  of  the  law.  Then,  after  reading 
Marezoll,  take  up  Puchta's  three  volumes  of  Institutionen. 
This  will  give  you  everything  you  want  to  know  in  a 
clear,  logical,  thoroughly  scientific  shape.  But,  above  all 
else,  you  must  read  the  Institutes  of  Gaius  and  Justinian 
in  the  original.  This  study  of  modern  text-books  is  all 
very  well,  but  it  cannot  absolve  you  from  the  knowledge 
of  the  Quellen:'  I  replied  that  I  had  Gneist's  edition  of 
the  Institutes  already  in  my  possession,  and  had  tried  to 
read  it,  but  without  success.  "Of  course  you  can't 

*  The  German  word  Quellen  is  the  technical  term  to  denote  the  primary 
sources  of  information  on  any  topic,  the  originals. 


124  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

understand  it  alone.  You  must  have  Heumann's  Hand- 
lexicon  to  the  Corpus  juris,  and  you  must  read  in  company 
with  some  advanced  student  who  can  explain  things  to 
you  step  by  step.  Call  at  my  room  to-morrow  or  the 
day  after,  and  by  that  time  perhaps  I  shall  have  some  one 
for  you."  I  felt  that  a  load  had  been  rolled  off  my  mind. 
These  words  of  sympathy  and  advice,  few,  but  to  the 
point,  had  at  least  pointed  out  to  me  the  way  of  knowl- 
edge. Henceforth  it  rested  only  with  myself  to  follow 
up  the  clew. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  this  incident,  because  it 
will  reveal  in  the  brightest  light  the  part  played  in  a  Ger- 
man university  by  the  Privat-docent.  The  professors  are, 
of  course,  very  learned  men,  but  they  are  not  always 
amiable,  at  least  not  always  communicative.  Standing 
on  the  isolated  pinnacles  of  science,  they  are  rather  cut 
off  from  the  world  below,  and  the  student  feels  reluctant 
to  approach  them.  But  the  Privat-docent^  still  a  young 
man  in  the  prime  of  physical  life,  fast  growing  in  great- 
ness, but  not  so  far  beyond  the  recollection  of  his  own 
student  days  as  to  be  unable  to  enter  fully  into  the  trials 
of  his  younger  brethren  beneath  him,  is  the  Vermittler, 
the  mediator,  in  the  university  organism.  With  one  hand 
he  urges  on  the  professor  to  renewed  research,  with  the 
other  he  raises  up  and  cheers  the  student.  A  university 
without  Privat-docenten  would  be  like  a  regiment  without 
corporals,  a  ship  without  a  boatswain  ;  with  them,  it  is 
the  most  powerful  and  yet  the  most  flexible  organization 
for  spiritual  purposes  in  the  world.  The  student  who 


WIESBADEN— THE  INSTITUTES.  125 

knows  one  or  more  Privat-docenten  can  post  himself 
readily  on  the  literature  of  every  topic  as  fast  as  it  may 
come  up,  can  get  the  latest  ideas,  pick  up  any  amount  of 
odds  and  ends  of  information  such  as  books  never  give, 
and  always  be  sure  of  friendly  advice.  The  relation 
between  Privat-docent  and  student  is  purely  one  of  friend- 
ship, characterized  on  one  part  by  elder-brotherly  inter- 
est, on  the  other  by  respect  unrestrained  by  ceremonial 
awe. 

Within  twenty-four  hours  all  the  books  mentioned  by 
Dr.  Maxen  were  in  my  possession.  A  brief  examination 
of  Marezoll's  Institutionen  showed  me  that  the  Dr.'s 
estimate  of  the  book  had  not  been  too  unfavorable. 
But  Puchta's  work  was  something  altogether  different. 
Although  entitled  Institutionen,  it  was  really  a  Pandec- 
ten  treatise,  but  with  a  large  infusion  of  the  historical 
element.  It  gave  me  precisely  the  help  that  I  had  long 
sought  after,  a  clear,  concise  exposition  of  legal  ideas  and 
doctrines,  and  a  pretty  complete  genesis,  so  to  speak,  of 
the  body  of  Roman  law.  The  first  volume  is  a  discussion 
of  Roman  constitutional  history  and  Rechtsgeschichte. 
The  third  volume,  unfortunately,  was  left  unfinished  in 
consequence  of  the  author's  death,  the  last  half  being 
edited  by  Professor  Rudorff  from  posthumous  notes. 
For  six  weeks  Puchta  was  scarcely  out  of  my  hand.  I 
not  only  read  through  the  entire  three  volumes  (nearly 
2,000  pages),  but  committed  many  of  the  definitions  and 
distinctions  to  memory,  and  reviewed  incessantly.  In 
this  way  I  obtained  a  tolerably  clear  idea  of  what  law 
*n 


126  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

in  general  is,  the  difference  between  statute  law  and  com- 
mon law,  the  theory  of  suspending,  abrogating,  and  retro- 
active conditions,  the  distinction  between  a  condition 
and  a  dies  ad  quern  or  a  quo,  the  Roman  notions  as  to 
natural  persons  and  juristic  persons,  as  to  hereditas, patria 
potestas,  in  manu,  and  the  like,  the  more  common  kinds 
of  contracts  and  of  real  property.  Puchta's  work  is  an 
eminently  useful  one  for  the  beginner.  It  gives  a  good 
deal  of  law,  but  gives  it  in  such  a  logical  shape  and  in 
such  a  luminous  style  that  it  captivates  the  reader.  It  is 
much  to  be  regretted  that  there  is  no  similar  work 
in  English  for  the  study  of  our  English  common  law,  in 
place  of  the  antiquated  method  and  jejune,  eighteenth- 
century  philosophy  called  Blackstone's  Commentaries. 
If  the  reader  can  imagine  Sharswood's  Blackstone,  Par- 
sons on  Contracts,  Washburne  on  Real  Property,  and 
Willard's  Equity  condensed  into  three  volumes,  infused 
with  the  spirit  of  modern  philosophic  inquiry  and  couched 
in  language  as  fresh  and  limpid  throughout  as  that  of 
Chancellor  Kent,  he  will  form  some  idea  of  Puchta  as  a 
jurist.  With  this  exception,  that  no  English  or  American 
writer  goes  after  the  fashion  of  the  Germans  into  the 
history  of  the  law.  There  are  no  such  works  in  English 
as  Savigny's  History  of  Roman  Law  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
Keller's  History  of  Roman  Procedure  by  Formula, 
Rudorff's  Rechtsgeschichte,  and  a  dozen  others  that  I 
might  mention,  where  advantage  is  taken  of  all  the  results 
of  modern  philology  and  modern  historic  inquiry.  In 
England  and  in  America,  law  is  regarded  as  a  practice, 


WIESBADEN—  THE  INSTITUTES.  127 

a  mode  of  earning  one's  livelihood,  a  sort  of  blind  swear- 
ing in  verba  magistrorum.  In  Germany,  it  is  treated  as  an 
historic  science,  in  fact,  as  the  twin  brother  of  history. 
Nearly  every  German  jurist  is  somewhat  of  an  historian, 
every  historian  is  a  jurist.  Indeed,  the  student  in  history 
cannot  obtain  his  Ph.  D.  without  passing  an  examination 
in  the  rudiments  of  Roman  and  German  law.  We  won- 
der at  the  firm  grasp,  the  unerring  insight  of  such  men  as 
Niebuhr  and  Mommsen,  but  we  overlook  the  circum- 
stance that  they  were  jurists  as  well  as  historians. 
Mommsen  in  particular  was  for  many  years  full  professor 
in  law.  Germany  has  been  for  half  a  century  under  the 
influence  of  the  so  called  "  historic  school,"  that  is  to 
say,  a  set  of  principles  which  have  been  advocated 
by  such  men  as  Thibaut,  Savigny,  Puchta,  Goeschen, 
Vangerow,  and  which  may  be  reduced  to  one  funda- 
mental idea :  that  law  is  a  growth  and  not  a  product,  and 
that  it  can  be  neither  comprehended,  amended,  expanded, 
nor  expounded  properly  without  a  full  and  scientific 
study  of  it  from  its  beginnings. 

Puchta  was  to  me  at  that  time  a  sort  of  condensed  stu- 
dent-library, it  contained  nearly  everything  that  I  needed 
for  preliminary  instruction.  But  Puchta  did  not  make 
me  overlook  the  Quellen  upon  which  my  friend  had 
laid  such  stress.  Thanks  to  Dr.  Maxen's  co-operation,  I 
was  put  in  the  way  of  becoming  one  of  a  trio  to  read  the 
Institutes  of  Gaius.  Fifty  years  before,  the  thing  would 
have  been  impossible,  for  the  work  was  reckoned  among 
the  lost  treasures  of  antiquity,  like  the  Comedies  of 


128  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Menander.  To  explain  this  point  fully,  I  must  go  into 
details  which,  I  trust,  will  not  prove  uninteresting.  The 
codification  of  Justinian  was  made  in  the  early  part  of 
the  sixth  century.  The  Roman  law  had  undergone  so 
many  and  so  radical  changes,  the  legal  literature  had 
accumulated  to  such  an  enormous  extent  that  the 
emperor,  thinking  to  simplify  matters,  appointed  a  com- 
mission, of  which  the  jurist  Tribonian  was  the  chief,  to 
elaborate  a  reform  by  classifying  and  simplifying  things. 
The  work  done  by  this  commission  was  subdivided  into 
three  parts:  i.  the  Institutiones,  a  short,  easy  text-book 
for  beginners;  2.  the  Digesta  seu  Pandecten,  a  vast  com- 
pilation of  principles  and  opinions  taken  from  the  leading 
jurists  of  the  classic  era  of  the  Roman  law  (under  the 
empire  before  the  partition)  and  arranged  in  fifty  books 
under  appropriate  headings ;  and,  3.  the  Codex,  a^similar 
collection  of  imperial  statutes  down  to  the  reign  of  Jus- 
tinian himself.  These  three  parts,  as  one  work,  were 
declared  to  be  of  equal  authority,  and  to  be  the  sole  legal 
guide  and  standard  in  the  realm  of  Justinian.  Every- 
thing else  was  expressly  abrogated.  The  codification 
thus  prepared  was  to  be  regarded  as  self-explanatory. 
After  it  had  been  published,  the  emperor  enacted  from 
time  to  time  a  number  of  subsequent  statutes,  many  of 
them  very  important  ones,  which  were  collected  under 
the  title  of  Novella,  or  new  laws.  These  four  works, 
then,  the  Institutes,  Digest,  Code,  and  Novels,  taken  as 
one,  with  a  short  appendix  of  feudal  law  and  the  so  called 
Authentic^  Fredericiana  added  in  the  reigns  of  the 


WIESBADEN—  THE  INSTITUTES.  129 

emperors  Frederick  I  and  II,  constitute  the  Corpus  Juris 
Civilis. 

Concerning  the  Institutes  in  particular,  it  was  known 
that  Tribonian's  commission,  in  preparing  their  text-book 
for  beginners,  had  made  liberal  use  of  a  similar  treatise 
written  by  one  Gaius  during  the  reign  of  the  emperor 
Marcus  Antoninus.  They  had  simply  taken  the  Insti- 
tutes of  Gaius  and  adapted  them  to  the  usages  of  the 
sixth  century,  by  omitting  certain  portions  regarded  as 
obsolete,  inserting  fresh  matter,  and  slightly  altering  the 
phraseology  of  the  portions  retained.  But  what  had 
become  of  the  original  Gaius  ?  No  one  could  answer  the 
question,  and  it  was  generally  believed,  until  the  begin- 
ning of  the  present  century,  that  the  Institutes  of  Gaius 
perished  in  the  confusion  of  the  Dark  Ages.  But  in  the 
year  1816,  Niebuhr,  who  was  then  exploring  the  library 
at  Verona,  stumbled  upon  a  manuscript  that  looked  to 
him  like  a  copy  of  the  long  lost  work.  Being  unable 
himself  to  follow  up  the  discovery,  for  want  of  time,  he 
simply  announced  it.  In  1817,  Goeschen,  then  professor 
at  Gottingen,  was  sent  to  Verona,  on  Niebuhr's  recom- 
mendation, to  undertake  the  critical  editing  of  the  manu- 
script. It  was  far  more  serious  than  had  been  supposed, 
and  the  final  success  was  one  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of 
modern  scholarship  and  ingenuity.  Not  only  was  the 
manuscript  a  palimpsest,  a  manuscript  of  which  the  orig- 
inal text  had  been  covered  by  a  second,  but  sixty-two  of 
the  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  pages  of  the  MS.  were 
even  a  double  palimpsest ;  the  second  writing  had  been  in 


130  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

its  turn  covered  by  a  third.  For  over  a  year  Goeschen, 
assisted  by  Bethmann-Hollweg,  worked  assiduously;  by 
the  most  careful  application  of  certain  chemicals,  he 
succeeded  in  erasing  the  second  and  third  writings  —  the 
epistles  of  St.  Jerome  —  and  deciphering  nearly  all  the 
orfginal  text.  His  first  edition  appeared  in  1820,  the  sec- 
ond, containing  the  emendations  of  Blume,  in  1824  ;  they 
created  a  revolution  in  the  study  of  the  Roman  law.  I 
doubt  whether  any  other  literary  discovery  ever  wrought 
such  wonders.  Let  the  reader  imagine,  if  he  can,  Greek 
literature  without  Homer,  and  then  let  him  imagine  a 
copy  of  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey  suddenly  unearthed  in 
some  convent  of  Wallachia.  The  study  of  the  Roman 
law  in  Germany  has  been  reconstructed  from  top  to  bot- 
tom, to  such  an  extent  that  Vangerow  dismisses  the  entire 
early  literature  on  the  subject  of  Roman  pleadings  in  the 
following  pithy  sentence  :  All  books  written  on  this  sub- 
ject before  the  year  1820  are  useless.  But  not  only  was 
the  theory  of  pleadings  understood  for  the  first  time,  the 
entire  body  of  the  Roman  law  was  overhauled.  Passages 
in  the  corpus  juris  upon  which  whole  libraries  of  angry 
controversial  pamphlets  had  been  written  to  no  avail  were 
now  found  to  be  quite  plain ;  technical  terms,  once  unin- 
telligible, explained  themselves  in  a  very  simple  manner. 
The  student  had  at  last  a  small  portable  key  with  which 
to  unlock  three  fourths  of  the  mysteries  that  had  haunted 
the  corpus  juris  for  a  thousand  years.  I  hazard  little  in 
asserting  that  at  the  present  day  the  veriest  tyro  in  the 
Roman  law  can  glibly  rattle  off  correct  answers  to  many 


WIESBADEN—  THE  INSTITUTES.  131 

a  grave  question,  and  translate  intelligibly  more  than  one 
passage  of  the  Digest  that  proved  itself  too  difficult  for 
the  entire  body  of  Italian,  Dutch,  French  and  German 
glossators  and  commentators  from  Irnerius  down  to  Pu- 
fendorf  and  Gliick. 

The  following  extract  may  serve  as  a  sample  of  the 
style  of  Gaius.  It  is  taken  from  Lib.  iv.,  §  16.  Si  in 
rem  agebatur,  mobilia  quidem  et  moventia,  quae  mo  do  in  jus 
adferri  adducive  possent,  injure  vindicabantur  ad  hunc  mo- 
dum.  Qui  vindicabat  festucam  tenebat.  Deinde  ipsam  rem 
adprehendebat,  velut  hominem  (i.  e.,  a  slave),  et  ita  dicebat  : 

HUNG  EGO  HOMINEM  EX  JURE  QuiRITIUM  MEUM  ESSE 
AIO  SECUNDUM  SUAM  CAUSAM  SICUT  DIXI.  ECCE  TIBI 

VINDICTAM  IMPOSUI,  et  simul  homini  festucam  imponebat. 
Adversus  eadem  similiter  dicebat  et  faciebat.  Cum  uterque 
vindicasset.  Praetor  dicebat:  MITTITE  AMBO  HOMINEM. 
////  mittebant.  Qui  prior  vindicaierit,  ita  alterum  interro- 
gabat  :  POSTULO  ANNE  DICAS  QUA  EX  CAUSA  VINDICAV- 
ERIS.  Ille  respondebat:  Jus  PEREGI  SICUT  VINDICTAM 
IMPOSUI.  Deinde  qui  prior  vindicaverit  dicebat :  QUANDO 

TU    INJURIA    VINDICAVISTI,  D  AERIS  SACRAMENTO  TE  PRO- 

voco.  Adversarius  quoque  dicebat:  SIMILITER  EGO  TE, 
etc.,  etc.  Nothing  could  be  simpler  than  the  wording  of 
the  above  passage,  but  one  must  be  more  than  a  Latin 
scholar  to  understand  it.  Gaius  is  describing  the  old 
method  of  bringing  a  suit  (legis  actio]  in  the  peculiar  way 
called  sacramento.  The  parties  appear  before  the  Prae- 
tor, with  the  object  in  dispute,  if  it  is  movable.  Each 
claims  it  for  his  own.  Thereupon  the  plaintiff  challenges 


132  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

the  defendant  to  a  wager  of  fifty  or  five  hundred  asses, 
according  to  the  value  of  the  object,  that  he  is  the  lawful 
owner.  The  money  is  deposited  in  some  temple  (hence 
the  expression  in  sacro  ),  and  the  judge  settles  merely  the 
point  who  has  lost  the  wager.  The  ownership  is  settled 
only  indirectly,  by  implication. 

The  reading  of  Gaius  was  not  completed  by  the  end 
of  the  vacation,  but  continued  for  some  time  into  the 

winter  semester.     My  associates  were  at  first  P of  the 

Westphalians  and  M of  the  Saxons,  both  candidates 

at  the  approaching  state  examination  in  Celle.  They 
were  of  course  far  more  advanced  than  myself,  and  also 
older  by  two  or  three  years,  so  that  I  derived  great  benefit 
from  their  superior  knowledge.  We  constituted  a  com- 
fortable "  clover-leaf,"  as  the  Germans  call  social  trios. 
Our  meetings  were  regular  but  perfectly  informal.  We 
met  at  one  another's  rooms  in  rotation  for  an  hour  or 
more  every  day.  Each  man  had  his  own  copy  of  Gaius, 
and  the  owner  of  the  room  was  held  to  have  in  readiness 
the  dictionaries  and  other  works  of  reference.  Our  prac- 
tice was  to  translate  a  paragraph  at  a  time,  in  turn,  trying 
to  make  the  rendering  as  close  as  possible,  in  fact  to  make 
it  what  would  be  in  print  an  interlinear  version,  line  by 
line,  word  by  word.  The  listeners  had  the  right  to  inter- 
rupt the  one  translating  and  call  upon  him  for  explana- 
tions. Our  progress  was  very  slow.  Although  the  style 
of  Gaius  is  simplicity  itself,  we  spent  often  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes  over  a  single  phrase  to  get  its  exact  technical 
signification.  Thus  the  phrase  hanc  rem  meant  esse  aio 


WIESBADEN—  THE  INSTITUTES.  133 

ex  jure  Quiritium,  means  one  thing,  and  hanc  rem  in 
bonis  meis  esse  means  something  very  different.  It  was 
the  object  of  our  reading,  then,  to  bring  out  all  such  dis- 
tinctions, to  discuss  them  thoroughly,  and,  if  necessary, 
trace  them  through  the  text-books.  A  German  text-book 
on  law  always  contains,  besides  the  index  of  topics,  an 
index  of  passages  quoted  from  the  corpus  juris ;  just  as  an 
English  law  book  contains  the  list  of  cases  cited.  By 
consulting  these  indexes  of  passages  and  comparing  Gaius 
with  Justinian,  we  were  able  to  find  whether  the  para- 
graph in  question  was  cited  by  Puchta  or  Arndt  or  Van- 
gerow  in  their  works  and,  if  so,  what  were  the  various 
interpretations  put  upon  it  and  deductions  made  from  it. 
This  naturally  took  a  good  deal  of  time,  but  the  results 
were  very  gratifying.  I  found  that,  by  dint  of  repetition 
and  collateral  reading,  not  only  the  outlines  of  the  law 
were  fixing  themselves  in  my  mind,  but  I  was  acquiring  a 
high  degree  of  facility  in  construing  law-Latin.  This,  it 
may  not  be  superfluous  to  observe,  is  a  language  by  itself, 
differing  from  the  ordinary  classic  Latin  as  the  phrase- 
ology of  Blackstone  differs  from  that  of  Byron.  The 
corpus  juris  abounds  in  terms  and  phrases  fully  as  techni- 
cal as  the  reliefs,  primer  seisins,  estoppels  of  English  legal 
treatises,  and  unless  one  understands  them  precisely,  the 
corpus  juris  is  a  sealed  book.  The  best  Latin  scholar, 
not  a  jurist,  could  not  read  a  title  of  the  Digest  without 
being  "  floored  "  in  every  paragraph  by  one  or  more  of 
them.  The  Institutes  of  Gaius  are  not  comprised  in  the 
corpus  juris,  it  is  true,  but  they  serve  all  the  better  as  a 
12 


134  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

propaedeutic  by  reason  of  their  exhibiting  the  Roman 
law  in  an  earlier  stage  of  development.  Whoever  has 
worked  his  way  faithfully  through  Gaius,  can  read  the 
Institutes  of  Justinian  off-hand,  and  after  he  has  read 
these,  he  can  construe  readily  passages  taken  from  the 
Digest  at  random.* 

Besides  reading  the  text  of  Gaius,  we  questioned  one 
another  every  day  on  the  substance  of  the  preceding  day's 
work,  and  tried  to  catch  one  another  in  a  friendly  way. 
This  necessitated  diligent  review  and  preparation  at 
home.  The  larger  share  of  the  benefit  fell  to  me,  of 
course,  as  the  beginner.  In  one  sense,  my  co-workers 
could  teach  me  everything  and  I  had  nothing  to  give  in 
return.  But  on  the  other  hand,  the  duty  of  setting  me 
aright  obliged  them  to  keep  their  own  knowledge  con- 
stantly in  hand,  as  it  were.  They  could  not  correct,  they 
could  not  even  interrogate  me  properly,  without  first  put- 
ting their  own  ideas  in  perfect  order.  No  one  can  realize 
—  until  he  tries  it  —  how  much  benefit  he  can  derive  from 
teaching,  and  how  carefully  he  must  overhaul  his  own 

*  If  the  reader  is  desirous  of  testing  his  ingenuity  by  a  rather  difficult  pas- 
sage, let  me  recommend  the  following  from  the  Institutes  of  Justinian,  §  2  I. 
Ill,  29.  Stipulatio  enim  Aquiliana  novat  otnnes  obligationes,  et  a  Gallo 
Aquilio  ita  composita  est  :  "  Quicquidte  mihi  ex  quacumque  causa  dare  facere 
epportet,  opportebit,  praesens  in  diemve,  quarumque  rerum  mihi  tecum  actio, 
quaeque  abs  te  petitio,  vel  adversus  te persecutio  est,  erit,  quodve  tu  meum  habeas, 
tents,  possides,  possedisti,  dolove  ntalo  fecisti  quominus  possideas*  quanti 
quaeque  earum  rerum  res  erit,  tantam  pecuniam  dari stipulatus  est  Aulus 
Agerius  (one  of  the  parties),  spopondit  Numerius  Negidius  (the  other  party). 
Item  ex  diverso  Numerius  Negidius  interrogavit  Aulum  Agerium  :  u  Quic- 
quid  tibi  hodierno  die  Per  Aquiliana  m  stipulationem  spopondi,  id  omne  habesne 
acceptum  f  "  respondit  A  ulus  Agerius  :  ^Habeo  acceptunique  tu/i."  The  entire 
transaction  is  simply  a  drawing  up  of  all  claims  held  by  one  party  against  the 
other,  with  a  view  to  making  a  formal  release. 


WIESBADEN—  THE  INSTITUTES.  135 

information  before  he  will  succeed  in  imparting  it  to  a 
beginner.* 

As  well  as  I  can  remember,  we  finished  the  Institutes 
of  Gaius  four  or  five  weeks  after  the  beginning  of  the 
winter  semester.  The  six  weeks  from  September  i.  to 
October  15.  passed  like  a  pleasant  dream,  yet  not  without 
yielding  permanent  fruits.  The  work  on  which  I  was 
engaged,  although  difficult,  was  not  discouraging,  and 
was  performed  with  pleasure,  while  the  weather  was 
simply  faultless.  The  mornings  and  evenings  were  hazy, 
but  the  afternoons  were  resplendent.  I  devoted  them 
religiously  to  recreation,  either  going  over  my  rambles  of 
the  year  before  or  playing  an  unlimited  number  of  games 
of  Kegel.  The  German  game  of  nine-pins  is  different 
from  our  ten-pins.  The  pins  are  set  up  in  diamond  shape, 
and  not  in  a  triangle,  and  the  count  increases  in  a  sort  of 
geometrical  ratio  —  instead  of  an  arithmetical— with  the 
number  of  pins  thrown  down.  Each  side  begins  with  a 
minus  number,  say  300  or  400,  and  adds  every  count  as  a 
plus  quantity.  The  game  is  over  when  the  plus  above 
zero  on  one  side  equals  the  minus  below  zero  on  the 
other.  The  alleys  are  much  inferior  to  our  own,  but  the 
game  can  be  made  to  develop  any  amount  of  fun.  The 
alleys  are  generally  in  the  open  air,  in  the  garden  of  the 
restaurant,  merely  protected  from  the  weather  by  a  shed 
overhead.  The  game  therefore  affords  a  healthy  exercise, 
free  from  the  musty,  whisky-laden  atmosphere  and  other 

*  It  was  part  of  Dr.  Maxen's  plan  to  make  his  advanced  students  "coach" 
their  weaker  brethren. 


136  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

disagreeable  associations  of  the  American  bar-room.  I 
look  upon  Kegel  as  the  climax  of  amusement  in  the  minor 
German  towns.  But  then  one  must  have  an  agreeable 
set  of  companions,  and  must  be  perhaps  still  in  the 
twenties  and  a  student,  to  enjoy  it  in  perfection. 


A 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  Leipsic. —  Commer. 

S  the  middle  of  October  came  around,  I  looked 
back  upon  the  preceding  six  months  with  a  pardon- 
able feeling  of  satisfaction.  Although  some  time  had 
been  lost  by  the  false  start  taken  at  Berlin,  I  had  made 
the  loss  good  by  industry  during  the  vacation,  and  was 
fully  prepared  for  the  heavy  work  of  the  approaching 
winter.  Becoming  more  and  more  intimate  with  Dr. 
Maxen,  I  fell  into  the  habit  of  looking  up  to  him  as  gen- 
eral adviser  and  father  confessor  and  giving  him  a  full 
and  impartial  account  of  my  studies.  He  gave  me  in 
return  the  comfortable  assurance  that  I  was  rather  in 
advance  of  the  average  student  of  like  standing.  "  Do 
not  be  discouraged,  he  often  said,  you  have  done  almost 
work  enough  for  two  semesters.  At  all  events,  you  are 
fairly  started.  Remain  here  in  Gottingen,  lose  no  more 
time,  and  all  will  be  well." 

After  finishing  Gaius,  my  friends  P and  M 

left  for  Celle,  to  enter  the  state  examination.  I  had  yet 
the  Institutes  of  Justinian  to  read.  Dr.  Maxen  was  suc- 
cessful, however,  in  arranging  a  second  "clover-leaf" 
quite  as  good  as  the  first.  The  two  new  members  were 
E and  S ,  both  Westphalians.  E was  my 

*I2 


138  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

superior  in  age  and  academic  standing,  being  then  in  his 
fourth  semester.  He  was  also  a  young  man  of  decided 
legal  acumen  and  of  quick  perceptions,  but  had  not  yet 

developed  into  a  very  steady  worker.     S was  &Fuchs 

in  his  second  semester,  like  myself,  but  having  spent  his 
time  after  the  approved  fashion  in  Kneipen  and  Paufeen, 
knew  very  little  law.  So  far  as  he  was  concerned,  then,  I 
occupied  the  dignified  position  of  teacher.  Indeed, 
thanks  to  the  regular  working  habits  acquired  in  the 

vacation,  I  put  E himself  on  his  mettle  to  retain  the 

lead.  Between  us,  we  succeeded  in  keeping  our  Fucks 
busy.  It  always  affords  high  moral  satisfaction  to  know 
that  there  is  somebody  worse  off  than  yourself,  toward 
whom  you  can  assume  the  air  of  superior  information. 
We  finished  the  Institutes  by  the  middle  of  November. 
I  should  state  that  the  edition  which  we  used  was  that 
prepared  by  Gneist,  of  Berlin.  It  is  a  very  handy,  prac- 
tical book.  Each  page  is  divided  into  two  parallel  col- 
umns. The  left  hand  column  is  reserved  for  Gaius, 
the  right  for  Justinian.  The  two  works  are  thus  placed 
side  by  side,  so  -that  the  reader  has  the  greatest  facility 
for  comparing  them,  and  also  for  reviewing  his  studies. 
I  improved  the  opportunity,  while  reading  Justinian,  by 
reviewing  Gaius  entire,  passage  for  passage. 

Before  proceeding  to  give  an  account  of  the  winter 
lectures,  I  wish  to  say  a  few  words  about  Kneipen  in  con- 
nection with  the  most  imposing  student  affair  of  the  kind 
that  I  attended.  The  word  Kneipe  has  a  double  meaning. 
It  denotes  the  place  where  drinking  is  done,  the  drinking- 


BA  TTLE  OF  LEIPSIC.—  COMMERS.  139 

hall  or  room  or  house,  or  it  denotes  the  drinking  itself, 
the  carouse.  The  verb  Kneipen  means  to  drink,  being 
used  promiscuously  with  trinken  ;  bekneipt,  for  instance,  is 
the  same  as  betrunken. 

In  whatever  other  respects  the  German  student  may 
be  irregular,  he  always  kneips  according  to  rule.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  go  into  all  the  particulars  of  the  Ger- 
man beer-code;  to  be  frank,  I  do  not  know  them  all 
myself,  for  they  are  as  complicated  and  numerous  as  the 
provisions  of  the  Notherbenrecht  (doctrine  of  disinherit- 
ance) of  the  corpus  juris.  The  reader  who  wishes  to  post 
himself  thoroughly  can  study  the  famous  Heidelberg 
Bier-comment  or  Sauf -comment.  The  chief  point  is  that 
when  you  sit  down  with  other  students  to  a  Kneipe,  you 
must  drink  with  the  others  and  not  according  to  your 
own  fancy.  Even  if  you  are  an  invited  guest,  you  will 
commit  a  breach  of  etiquette  by  drinking  by  yourself. 
You  must  always  "  come  "  to  the^health  of  some  one  in 
particular.  The  modus  operandi  is  this.  A  calls  out  to 
B  :  Es  kommt  Ihnen  (Dir)  etwas,  Ich  komme  Dir  einen 
halben,  einen  ganzen  vor,  that  is :  "  Here's  something  to 
you,  a  half  glass,  a  whole  glass,"  as  the  case  may  be. 
This  is  called  Vor komme n.  B's  duty  is  to  respond, 
which  he  can  do  in  a  variety  of  phrases,  such  as :  Prosit, 
trink'ihn,  Trinken  Sie  ihn>  sauf'ihn,  in  die  Welt,  etc.  B 
must  also  drink  exactly  the  same  quantity.  This  he  can 
do  either  immediately,  saying  Ich  komme  mit,  literally, 
"  I  come  along  with  you,"  or  after  an  interval,  when  he 
says,  Ich  komme  nach,  "  I  come  after  you."  When  B 


140  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

comes  mit  or  nach  to  A,  he  can  at  the  same  time  come 
vor  to  any  third  man  C,  thereby  making  one  potation  do 
double  service.  If  A  wishes  to  drink  to  the  health  of 
B  without  putting  him  under  the  obligation  of  mitkom- 
men  or  nachkommenr  he  says :  Auf  Ihr  (deiri)  Specielles, 
i.  e.,  "  To  your  especial  good  health."  This  is  the  usual 
way  of  showing  attention  to  an  invited  guest,  particularly 
one  rather  advanced  in  life  or  in  social  standing. 

Every  Kneipe  has  a  master,  or  presiding  officer,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  see  that  each  man  meets  the  requirements 
of  the  Comment,  and  from  whose  decision  there  is  no 
appeal.  He  gives  tone  and  character  to  the  entertain- 
ment, selecting  the  songs  to  be  sung,  and  appointing  the 
editor  of  the  so  called  Beer-gazette.  This  is  a  sort  of 
comic  paper,  either  in  prose  or  verse,  composed  im- 
promptu, and  devoted  to  the  persiflage  of  the  members 
of  the  kneipe  and  the  incidents  of  the  week.  The 
master  can  punish  disorder  or  disobedience,  by  ordering 
the  unruly  member  to  drink  a  quantity  of  beer  pro  poena^ 
as  it  is  called. 

One  of  the  side  performances  of  a  Kneipe  is  a  "  beer 
duel."  Two  students,  wishing  to  ascertain  which  one  is 
the  better  man,  i.  e.,  the  faster  drinker  of  the  two, 
choose  an  umpire.  This  umpire  places  the  duelists  side 
by  side,  sees  that  each  one  has  his  glass  properly  filled, 
and  calls  off:  One,  two,  three.  At  the  word  three,  each 
one  must  put  his  glass  to  his  mouth  and  empty  it  as  fast 
as  he  can.  The  one  who  can  rap  his  glass  first  on  the 
table  is  the  victor.  It  is  the  umpire's  duty  to  see  that 


BA  TTLE  OF  LEIPZIG.—  COMMERS.  141 

the  duel  has  been  fairly  conducted,  i.  e.,  that  no  heel-tap 
is  left  in  the  glass.  The  victor  has  the  right  to  call  the 
other  his  beer-boy,  Bierjungen.  To  challenge  another 
to  the  duel  is,  in  technical  parlance,  ihm  einen  Bierjungen 
aufbrummen.  I  advise  my  countrymen  not  to  venture 
upon  a  beer-duel  without  considerable  preliminary  prac- 
tice, for  the  greenhorn  may  be  sure  of  getting  the  worst. 
The  veteran  student  has  a  knack  at  swallowing  beer  that 
would  horrify  any  respectable  professor  of  anatomy  and 
hygiene.  In  truth,  he  does  not  swallow  at  all ;  he  throws 
his  head  slightly  back,  opens  his  mouth  and,  holding  his 
breath,  simply  pours  the  beer  down  the  esophagus  as  if 
it  were  a  long  funnel.  The  rapidity  with  which  a  glass 
of  beer  can  be  made  to  disappear  by  this  process  is 
something  incredible. 

The  1 8th  of  October,  1863,  was  the  semi-centennial 
anniversary  of  the  great  battle  of  Leipsic.  German 
patriotism  rose  to  fever-heat,  the  students  of  course 
catching  the  contagion.  It  was  resolved  to  hold  a  grand 
Studenten-kneipe  on  the  evening  of  the  eighteenth  in  the 
large  hall  of  the  Deutsches  Haus,  outside  the  Geismar 
Gate.  To  those  who  know  Germany  merely  as  she  is 
now,  a  compactly  united  empire,  under  one  supreme 
head  and  one  legislative  body  chosen  by  direct  election, 
the  days  of  the  old  Bund  will  appear,  I  suspect,  a 
mystery.  In  1863  there  was  no  Germany,  so  far  as  con- 
cerned form,  concert  of  action,  anything  beyond  hope* 
and  sentiments;  there  were  thirty  German  countries 
pulling  as  many  different  ways. 


142  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

In  1864,  for  instance,  some  of  the  students  at  Gottin- 
gen  assembled  in  the  railway  station  and  gave  three 
groans  for  Bismarck,  as  he  passed  through  on  his  way  to 
Berlin ;  the  university  thought  it  advisable  to  transmit  to 
the  Prussian  government  an  explanation  and  formal  dis- 
avowal. Prior  to  1866,  certainly,  the  old  saying,  that 
wherever  two  Germans  met  there  were  sure  to  be  three 
different  opinions,  still  held  good  even  to  the  details  of 
common  life.  As  to  organizing  any  public  entertainment 
without  a$  squabble  of  one  kind  or  another,  it  was  quite 
impossible.  The  solemn  commemoration  of  the  battle 
of  Leipsic  gave  rise  at  Gottingen  to  a  quarrel  between 
the  Corps-studenten  and  the  Wilden  over  the  matter  of 
precedence  in  the  procession  through  the  streets. 
Neither  party  would  yield  an  inch.  They  came  almost 
to  blows  in  broad  daylight  in  front  of  the 'Town  Hall, 
and  nothing  but  the  personal  interference  of  the  Pro- 
rector  and  his  "  poodles  "  prevented  bloodshed. 

The  result  was  that  the  Corps-studenten  held  the  Kneipe 
by  themselves.  I  had  been  invited  two  or  three  days 
before  by  my  Westphalian  friends ;  although  regretting 
the  disturbance,  I  did  not  judge  that  it  compelled  me  to 
forego  the  Kneipe.  Besides,  there  might  not  be  another 
such  opportunity  of  seeing  all  the  Corps-studenten  to- 
gether. 

Knowing  the  importance  of  keeping  both  mind  and 
body  fresh  for  the  encounter,  I  passed  the  afternoon  dili- 
gently at  Kegel.  The  banquet  began  at  half-past  seven 
in  the  evening.  The  hall  was  decorated  with  the  Hano- 


BATTLE  OF  LEI  P  SIC.— 


verian  colors,  and  with  the  colors  of  the  several  corps. 
Each  corps  sat  by  itself,  at  its  own  table.  The  West- 
phalians  had  the  presidency,*  as  well  as  I  can  remem- 
ber. Being  on  speaking  terms  with  nearly  all,  and 
knowing  three  or  four  quite  intimately,  I  felt  at  ease  at 
their  table.  A  plain  but  good  supper  was  served  in  two 
or  three  courses.  The  toasts  were  then  in  order.  After 
the  lapse  of  so  many  years,  I  do  not  pretend  to  remem- 
ber any  of  the  speeches  ;  indeed,  I  made  no  attempt  to 
charge  my  mind  with  them  at  the  time.  Partiality  for 
German  scholarship  and  German  books  does  not  imply 
admiration  for  German  oratory.  Now  and  then  one 
hears  a  strong  address  in  the  Prussian  House  of  Depu- 
ties or  the  Imperial  Diet.  Bismarck,  Lasker,  Gneist, 
Windhorst-Meppen,  and  the  other  leaders  of  debate  say 
very  good  things,  and  say  them  to  the  point,  with  a 
refreshing  absence  of  "buncombe."  Still,  we  shall 
scarcely  do  the  Germans  injustice  by  declining  to  rate 
their  public  speaking  as  true  oratory.  It  does  not  appeal 
to  the  soul,  it  does  not  sweep  the  soul  off  in  a  tide  of 
passion  tempered  by  reason,  or  reason  quickened  by 
passion. 

Public  speaking  in  Germany  is  rather  didactic.  I 
doubt  whether  the  language  will  permit  flights  of  oratory. 
The  structure  of  the  sentence,  especially  the  dependent 
clauses,  is  such  as  to  make  the  orator  appear  almost  of 
necessity  halting  and  diffuse.  He  can  not  place  his  1 

*  This  shifts  from  year  to  year  in  rotation. 


144  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


emphatic  words  as  he  wishes,  but  must  run  the  risk  of 
blunting  the  point  of  an  expression  by  a  trail  of  pro- 
crastinating verb*  and  separable  particles.  Furthermore, 
the  Germans  are  not  very  happy  in  after-dinner  speaking. 
They  are  too  ponderous,  they  do  not  possess  the  art  of 
saying  clever  nothings  that  provoke  mirth  and  facilitate 
digestion. 

The  speeches  delivered  at  the  banquet  in  question 
were  not  above  the  average.  Several  professors  were 
present  as  invited  guests  and  made  short  formal  har- 
angues. One  or  two  of  the  students,  it  seemed  to  me, 
did  better  than  their  instructors.  At  least  they  had 
more  fire,  more  "snap."  The  key-note  was  of  course 
German  patriotism  and  German  unity.  Germany  was 
faithfully  praised  and  no  less  faithfully  exhorted. 
France,  I  am  able  to  state,  was  not  abused.  French- 
men were  spoken  of  as  "  invaders,"  and  Germany  was 
congratulated  on  having  rid  herself  of  them  and  under- 
taken to  work  out  her  destiny  for  herself.  But  patriotism 
did  not  degenerate  into  chauvnisme.  The  general  tone 
was  healthy ;  there  was  plenty  of  thankfulness  for  what 
had  been  done,  and  exuberant  confidence  in  the  future, 
but  there  was  no  trace  of  aggressive  rancor.* 

The  professors  and  other  elderly  guests  beat  a  retreat 
before  ten  o'clock,  leaving  the  students  to  display  their 
peculiar  youthful  qualities  without  restraint.  I  shall  not 

*  The  reader  may  find  fresh  proof  of  the  absence  of  malice  from  the  Ger- 
man character  in  the  circumstance  that  the  Marseillaise  was  played  repeatedly 
at  public  concerts  in  Berlin  in  1872  and  1873,  and  nearly  always  encored. 


BA  TTLE  OF  LEIPSIC—  COMMERS.  145 

attempt  to  describe  the  babel  that  ensued.  The  reader 
has  only  to  imagine  half  a  dozen  students  haranguing  at 
once  in  varying  degrees  of  "  inspiration,"  healths  drunk 
right  and  left,  glasses  jingling,  masters  of  ceremonies 
bawling  to  order,  waiters  rushing  to  and  fro.  But  has 
the  reader  ever  heard  of  that  august  ceremony  called 
"  rubbing  a  salamander  ?  "  Let  me  give  it.  The  presi- 
dent rises  from  his  chair  and,  carefully  clearing  his 
throat  and  filling  his  lungs,  lets  the  thundering  words 
resound  through  the  room:  Silentium,  meine  Herren, 
silentium  !  !  Schmidt,  du  trinkst  einen  pro  poena. —  Pstl 
Ruhig,  sonst  trinkst  du  noch  einen.  "  Smith,  you've  got  to 
drink  one  as  a  fine  (for  having  interrupted  me).  Pst !  be 
quiet,  or  else  you'll  get  another."  Silentium!  Fischer ; 
zwei  pro  poena  !  "  Gentlemen,  in  consideration  of  the  glo- 
rious occasion  we  celebrate,  I  herewith  call  upon  you  " 

Forster,  du  kriegst  zwei  pro  poena,  will  mir  keiner  den 
Kerl  herausschmeissen,  "  two  for  Foster,  will  nobody  do 

me  the  kindness  to  put  the  fellow  out  " "  call  upon 

you,  gentlemen,  to  participate  in  the  joyous  exercise  of 
rubbing  a  salamander."  Ad  exercitium  salamandri,  dro, 
drum.  Aufstehen,  aufstehen,  "  get  up !  Hannemann, 
why  don't  you  get  up,  I  say?  "  (H 's  neighbors  in- 
form the  president  that  H is  abgef  alien,  too  far  gone 

to  rise).  "Well,  then,  help  him  up,  stand  him  on  his 
legs.  Gentlemen  !  All  glasses  full  ?  "  Ad  exercitium 
salamandri,  "  One,  two,  three  !  Drink  out !  "  Hanne- 
mann, du  hast  nicht  ausgetrunken.  (Here  H , 

assisted  by  his  friends,  succeeds  in  getting  some  of  the 


146  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

beer  down  his  throat,  but  the  larger  share  over  his  shirt). 
Silentium,  "  One,  two,  three."  (Here  every  man  pounds 
his  glass  furiously  on  the  table).  Ad  loca  !  Ad  loca  ! 
"  Take  your  seats." 

The  salamander  is  bad  enough,  but  something  infinitely 
worse  is  the  Bierwalzer,  one  of  those  thumping  waltzes 
of  which  the  Germans  are  so  fond.  The  music  rises  and 
falls,  a  slight  pause  is  made ;  suddenly  every  one  com- 
mences to  keep  time  with  the  music,  first  by  stamping  on 
the  floor,  next  by  whistling,  lastly  by  jingling  glasses; 
then  comes  the  final  outburst  unisono  in  the  thrilling 
words :  O  jerum  jerum  jerum  jerum,  la  la  la,  etc.  On 
reaching  the  fourth  or  fifth  verse  of  this  simple  melody, 
one  need  not  be  surprised  to  notice  that  his  head  shows 
a  remarkable  proclivity  to  roll  all  over  the  room,  while 
his  heart  is  expansive  enough  to  embrace  the  universe, 
My  remembrances  of  the  finale  of  the  great  Eighteenth- 
of-October  Commers*  are  that  I  became  involved  in  a 
very  elaborate  and  eloquent  discussion  with  two  West- 
phalians,  likewise  studiosi  Juris,  upon  the  dominium  ex 
jure  Quiritium  and  the  equitable  functions  of  the  Prae- 
torian Edict,  very  fertile  topics,  upon  which  one  can  talk 
all  night  without  coming  to  a  conclusion.  My  friend 

P ,  the  veteran  of  a  hundred  Kneipen,  who  had  me 

under  his  especial  charge  as  his  guest,  came  to  the  rescue, 
by  suggesting,  in  a  whisper,  that  perhaps  "  we  "  had  bet- 
ter make  our  escape.  So  I  took  French  leave  of  the 

*  Commers  is  the  name  given  to  a  Kncipe  of  a  more  grandiose  character 
than  usual. 


BA  TTLE  OF  LEIPZIG.—  COMMERS.  147 

Commers^  and  reached  my  quarters  in  safety.  The  next 
morning  I  had  a  slight  touch  of  Jammer,  not  serious, 
just  enough  to  make  me  feel  disposed  to  be  out  in  the 
open  air,  and  indisposed  to  work.  As  lectures  had  not 
yet  commenced,  I  lost  nothing.  It  may  not  be  going  too 
far  out  of  my  way  to  observe  that  Jammer  has  its 
degrees,  its  giront,  as  the  student  of  Dante  might  term 
them,  three  in  number  :  der  gew'bhnliche  Hauskater,  der 
Wildkater,  and  das  graue  Elend.  Woe  to  the  man 
who  has  plunged  recklessly  into  the  abyss  of  the 
graues  Elend.  I  remember  seeing  once  a  fellow- 
countryman,  anything  but  a  neophyte  in  such  mat- 
ters, after  he  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Phil- 
istines. He  had  been  beguiled  into  accepting  an 
invitation  to  pass  the  evening  over  a  bowl  of  Swedish 
punch,  an  infamous  decoction  brewed  after  Father  Tom's 
recipe,  except  that  arrack  is  substituted  for  whisky.  You 
take  a  little  sugar  and  some  arrack,  and  then  you  put  in 
some  more  sugar,  and  then  some  more  arrack,  and  every 
drop  of  water  you  put  in  after  that  only  spoils  the  punch. 
My  poor  friend,  relying  upon  general  experience,  and 
ignorant  of  what  he  was  dealing  with,  had  been  com- 
pletely fooled  by  the  sweetness  of  the  beverage  into 
drinking  an  inordinate  number  of  glasses.  The  conse- 
quence was  that  by  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  he  had 
just  crawled  out  of  bed,  and  was  lying  hopeless  on  the 
sofa,  trying  to  recall  his  vanished  animation  with  an  occa- 
sional sip  of  very  mild  brandy  and  water.  A  more  woe- 


148  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

begone,   spiritless   countenance   it    would    be    hard    to 
imagine. 

The  students  have  a  superb  collection  of  songs  in  their 
Commersbuch.  The  reader  is  doubtless  familiar  with 
Was  kommt  denn  von  der  Hoh,  and  one  or  two  others  in 
Longfellow's  charming  translation.  It  gives  me  pleasure, 
even  now  in  these  later  years,  to  turn  over  the  leaves  of 
the  Commersbuch  and  read  as  chance  may  direct.  Many 
of  these  songs  are  quite  old.  Volkslieder,  perhaps,  that 
sprang  up  among  the  scholastid  vagantes  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries ;  others  bear  the  names  of  the 
most  famous  poets  of  Germany,  such  as  Goethe,  Korner, 
Burger,  Uhland,  Arndt.  There  is  a  wonderful  poetic 
vein  running  through  them,  a  mingling  of  wit,  humor, 
pathos,  rude  physical  life,  beautiful  imagery,  absurd  slang. 
The  Commersbuch  is  as  chaotic,  as  irrepressible,  as  full  of 
good  and  evil  in  glaring  juxtaposition,  as  the  student- 
life  itself.  Generations  of  young  men  have  labored  upon 
it  to  make  it  what  it  is,  the  one  student  song-book  in  the 
world.  Yet  the  singing,  I  regret  to  say,  is  scarcely  equal 
to  the  music.  Whether  the  voices  are  made  gruff  by 
excessive  quantities  of  beer,  whether  there  is  a  want  of 
tenors  among  the  students,  at  all  events  the  singing, 
although  hearty  and  correct  in  time,  is  not  as  melodious 
as  it  should  be.  It  has  always  left  me  unsatisfied. 


CHAPTER  X. 
r>fo  Pandects. 

NE  might  while  away  many  an  unoccupied  hour  not 
unpleasantly  in  speculating  upon  the  general  char- 
acter of  Justinian's  codification.  That  the  emperor  him- 
self, whom  the  modern  critic  is  constantly  tempted  to  set 
down  as  a  "  prig,"  fondly  regarded  his  codification  as 
something  wonderful,  is  evident  from  the  extravagant 
self-laudation  in  the  Digestorum  confirmatio.  Imperator 
Caesar  Flavius  Justinianus,  Alamannicus,  Gotthicus, 
FrancicuSy  Germanicus,  Anticus,  Alanicus,  Vandalicus, 
Africanus,  pius,  felix,  inclytus,  victor  triumphator,  sem- 
per colendus  Augustus,  etc.,  etc.  §  i  —  nunc  vero  omnium 
veterum  juris  conditorum  colligentes  sententias  e  multi- 
tudine  librorum^  qui  erant  circiter  dua  millia,  numerum 
autem  versuum  habebant  tricies  centena  millia,  in  nwdera- 
tum  et  perspicuum  collegimus  compendium.  Quinquaginta 
itaque  nunc  fecimus  libros  e  superioribus  colligentes  utilia, 
et  omnes  ambiguitates  resecantes,  et  nihil  adhuc  dissidem 
relinquentes.  Quern  librum  Digesta  sive  Pandecten  appel- 
lavimuS)  turn  quod  legum  contineat  disputationes,  ac  decis- 
iones,  turn  exeo,  quod  omnia  in  unum  collecta  recipiat, 
hanc  ipsi  ponentes  appellationem  ;  non  ultra  centum  quin- 
quaginta  versuum  millia  ipsi  dantes,  et  in  septem  ilium 


150  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

digerentes  tractates,  idque  non  temere,  verum   numerorum 
naturam  et  concentum  spectantes. 

The  idea  of  simplifying  the  great  body  of  the  Roman 
law,  by  substituting  one  compact  work  for  a  whole  library, 
was  praiseworthy.  But  the  execution  was  anything  but 
faultless.  There  are  many  places,  indeed,  where  the  work 
of  Tribonian  and  his  fellow  Commissioners  seems  to  have 
amounted  to  little  more  than  a  diligent  use  of  scissors 
and  paste.  The  Commission  drew  up  a  scheme  of  work, 
laying  out  the  law  like  a  vegetable  garden,  here  a  place 
for  cabbages,  there  a  patch  for  turnips,  potatoes,  or  the 
like,  and  then  filling  up  the  several  compartments  by  the 
mechanical  process  of  transplanting.  The  Digest  makes 
a  stout  volume  of  900  lexicon  octavo  pp.,  double  col- 
umns, solid  matter,  divided  into  fifty  books,  each  book 
subdivided  again  into  titles.  The  subdivisions  of  a  title 
are  called  leges,  and  each  lex  may  have  one  or  more  par- 
agraphs. The  German  mode  of  citation  is  thus :  1.  2,  § 
32  D.  de  orig.  jur.  (I,  2).  One  might  suppose  that  at 
least  each  title  would  be  worked  up  into  something  like 
homogeneity,  that  is  to  say,  that  the  Commission,  after 
collecting  their  authorities,  would  really  digest  them, 
would  extract  the  principles  embodied  in  the  works  of 
Papinian,  Gaius,  Paulus,  Ulpian,  etc.,  retaining  perhaps 
the  phraseology  to  a  large  extent,  but  nevertheless  recast- 
ing the  whole.  But  this  they  did  not  do.  They  simply 
extracted  passages  from  the  great  Roman  jurists  of  the 
classic  period,  putting  them  together  as  beads  are  arranged 
on  a  string.  Their  work  accordingly  is  nothing  more 


THE  PANDECTS.  151 


than  a  mosaic  of  quotations.  To  such  an  excess  did 
they  carry  this  patching  process,  that  in  some  instances 
they  even  made  up  a  complete  sentence  or  opinion  with 
fragments  of  sentences  from  two  or  more  authors.  Thus, 
in  the  Title  de procuratoribus  et  defemoribus  (III,  3),  lex  8 
(taken  from  ULPIAN)  ends  :  Item  sidignitas  accesserit  pro- 
curatori,  vel  reipublicae  causa  abfuturus  sit,  lex  9  (GAIUS) 
out  si  valetudinem,  aut  si  necessariam  peregrinationem  alleget, 
lex  10  (ULPIAN  once  more)  vel  hereditas  superveniens  eum 
occupet,  vel  ex  alia  justa  causa.  Hoc  amplius  et  si  habeat 
praesentem  dominum,  non  debere  compelli  procurator -em ,  lex 
ii  (PAULUS)  si  tamen  dominus  cogi possit. 

To  read  the  Digest,  then,  is  hard  work.  The  Latin  is 
simple,  but  the  reader  must  have  the  exactest  understand- 
ing of  technical  terms,  and  such  a  grasp  of  the  subject  as 
to  be  able  to  master  the  most  condensed  expressions  of 
thought  and  very  abrupt  transitions.  A  lex  is  usually 
either  a  passage  selected  from  a  theoretical  treatise,  or  an 
opinion  in  a  case.  If  it  is  the  latter,  nothing  but  the 
facts  are  given  and  the  opinion.  I  offer  specimens  of 
both. 

Lex  i  (PAULUS)  D.  de  usufr.  (VII,  i).  Ususfructus  est 
jus  alienis  rebus  utendi  fruendi  salva  rerum  substantia  is 
merely  a  theoretical  definition.  Lex  20,  ULPIANUS,  same 
title :  Si  quis  ita  legaverit,  lfructus  annuos  fundi  Corneliani 
Caio  Maevio  do,lego,'  perindeaccipi  debet  hie  sermo,  ac  si 
ususfructus  esset  legatus,  is  an  instance  of  equitable 
construction.  The  intentions  of  the  testator,  mani- 
fested in  the  words  fructus  annuos,  are  to  be  carried  out, 


152  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

although  he  has  failed  to  use  the  technical  expression 
ususfructus. 

Until  comparatively  recent  times,  the  study  of  the  Pan- 
dects consisted  in  listening  to  or  reading  a  sort  of  run- 
ning commentary  upon  the  principal  passages  of  the  fifty 
books,  in  the  order  in  which  they  occur.  But  this  method 
has  gone  out  of  use,  in  Germany  at  least.  A  professor 
who  lectures  on  the  Pandects  arranges  his  own  order  of 
topics,  or  follows  that  of  some  popular  text-book,  gener- 
ally that  of  Arndts.  In  either  case,  the  order  is  strictly 
scientific  and  the  subdivision  very  minute.  The  course 
is  a  systematic  grouping  and  exposition  of  the  principles 
scattered  throughout  the  corpus  juris,  each  statement 
being  supported  by  references. 

The  winter's  work  was  heavy.  I  had  Pandects  with 
Professor  Mommsen  every  day,  including  Saturday,  from 
nine  to  eleven,  Criminal  Law  with  Professor  Zachariae 
every  day  from  twelve  to  one,  Doctrine  of  Inheritance 
with  Dr.  Schlesinger  five  times  a  week,  in  the  afternoon, 
History  of  Civil  Procedure  among  the  Romans  with  Dr. 
Maxen  twice  a  week.  In  all,  twenty-five  hours  of  rapid 
writing  a  week.  The  lecturers,  Dr.  Maxen  excepted, 
gave  very  little  tempusj  Mommsen,  in  particular,  scarcely 
any. 

I  have  an  indistinct  remembrance  of  reading  years  ago 
a  well  written  magazine  article  on  German  university  life, 
but  the  author's  name  has  escaped  me.  Whoever  he  may 
be,  he  has  made  one  serious  misstatement  which  I  feel 
called  upon  to  correct.  He  says  that,  with  a  view  to 


THE  PANDECTS.  153 


acquiring  facility  in  translation  from  German  into  Eng- 
lish, he  made  a  practice  of  translating  in  the  lecture- 
room,  writing  down  his  notes  (from  the  lecturer's  words) 
in  English  and  not  in  German.  To  me  this  sounds 
like  an  impossibility.  I  have  heard  many  lectures 
from  many  different  men,  but  never  a  lecture  that  could 
be  translated  off-hand  after  this  fashion.  A  hearer 
thoroughly  familiar  with  both  languages  might  select  a 
sentence  here  and  there  and  put  it  into  crude  English. 
But  he  would  certainly  not  succeed  in  getting  complete 
notes.  The  best  proof  that  I  can  give  is  my  own  experi- 
ence. Having  always  been  a  ready  penman,  and  having 
acquired  a  high  degree  of  proficiency  in  German  through 
a  residence  of  two  years  and  constant  attention  to  the 
language  in  general,  and  to  legal  phraseology  in  partic- 
ular, I  could  take  notes  as  fast  as  any  of  the  German 
students.  By  exerting  myself  to  the  utmost,  I  succeeded 
in  taking  down  everything  said  or  dictated  by  Mommsen 
and  Zachariae.  The  others  spoke  too  fast.  My  notes  on 
the  Pandects,  on  Criminal  Law,  and  on  Ecclesiastical 
Law  were  as  full  as  those  of  any  other  student  in  the 
class,  and  were  borrowed  continually  by  my  colleagues. 
Yet  I  can  assure  the  reader  that,  in  order  to  succeed,  I 
had  to  put  forth  every  effort  in  the  way  of  concentrated 
attention  and  systematic  abbreviation.  As  a  specimen 
of  note-taking,  I  give  the  following  passages,  one  from 
Mommsen,  the  other  from  Herrmann  ;  assuring  the  reader 
that  both  were  written  as  fast  as  the  pen  could  be  made 
to  move  over  the  paper : 


154  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

MOMMSEN.  "  Unter  DOS  vrstht  man  ein  Gut  welches 
von  d.  Frau  od  fur  dieselb.  d.  Manne  gegeb.  wird,  damit 
ihm  durch  d.  Genuss  desselb.  fur  d.  Dauer  d.  Ehe  ein  fort- 
gehend.  Beitrag  zr.  Bestreitg  d.  Kosten  d.  ehel.  Lebens 
gewahrt  werde." 

Written  out  in  full :  Unter  DOS  (dower,  according  to 
the  Roman  Law)  versteht  man  ein  Gut,  welches  von  der 
Frau  oder  fur  dieselbe  dem  Manne  gegeben  wird,  damit 
ihm  durch  den  Genuss  desselben  fur  die  Dauer  der  Ehe 
ein  fortgehender  Beitrag  zur  Bestreitung  der  Kosten  des 
ehelichen  Lebens  gewahrt  werde. 

"  Upset "  into  English  on  the  spot,  the  passage  could 
not  possibly  be  put  into  more  tolerable  shape  than  the 
following :  By  "  dower  "  we  understand  a  piece  of  prop- 
erty which  by  the  wife  or  on  her  acc't  is  given  to  the 
husband,  in  order  that  to  him  through  the  use  thereof 
for  the  duration  of  the  marriage  a  permanent  contribu- 
tion toward  meeting  the  expenses  of  matrimony  may  be 
secured. 

HERRMANN  — "  D.  Kirche  ist  d.  v.  Xtus  gestiftete, 
mit  d.  zr.  geschichtl.  Fortfuhrg.  d.  Erlosgswerks  erforderl. 
Vollmacht.  u.  Gaben  ausgerustete  u  durch.  Einsetzg  d. 
immer  w'dhrend.  Apostolats  verfasste  Anstlt." 

Die  Kirche  ist  die  von  Christus  gestiftete,  mit  den 
zur  geschichtlichen  Fortfuhrung  des  Erlosungswerkes 
erforderlichen  Vollmachten  und  Gaben  ausgerustete  und 
durch  Einsetzung  des  immer  wahrenden  Apostolats  verfasste 
Anstalt. 

This  would  look  still  worse,  "  upset :  "     The  Church  is 


THE  PANDECTS.  155 


the  by  Christ  founded,  with  the  for  the  historic  carrying 
out  of  the  plan  of  redemption  needful  powers  and  gifts 
furnished  and  by  the  institution  of  the  perpetual  apos- 
tolic succession  constituted  establishment. 

Will  any  one  believe  that  a  succession  of  such  sen- 
tences, kept  up  by  the  hour,  can  be  translated  currents 
falamo?  Or  that  the  attempt,  if  seriously  made,  will 
lead  to  anything  but  the  direst  confusion  of  both  lan- 
guages ?  I  never  thought  of  making  the  attempt,  but 
was  satisfied,  and  very  justly  satisfied,  with  holding  the 
thread  of  the  discourse  in  my  mind,  while  my  fingers 
formed  the  German  letters  mechanically.  Furthermore,  I 
venture  to  doubt  whether  a  man  can  be  found  able  to 
translate  off-hand,  even  from  a  printed  book,  provided  the 
style  be  at  all  above  the  simplest  narrative  prose.  The 
structure  of  the  German  sentence  forbids  rapid  transla- 
tion. The  translator  has  to  change  the  order  of  words 
and  ransack  his  vocabulary  for  equivalents.  Although 
knowing  men  by  the  score,  who  could  read  a  German 
book  as  rapidly  and  get  as  clear  an  ide  i  of  the  meaning 
as  if  it  were  expressed  in  English,  I  have  never  yet  seen 
one  who  could  put  the  same  book  into  even  intelligible 
English  without  stopping  to  consider  carefully  each  sen- 
tence. 

I  should  therefore  dissuade  every  countryman  of  mine 
from  attempting  to  translate  in  the  lecture  hour,  so  long 
as  he  regards  the  lecture  as  a  mode  of  imparting  substan- 
tial truth,  and  not  as  a  mere  occasion  for  practice  in 
language.  Translation  is  a  most  excellent  exercise,  but 


156  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

it  cannot  be  cultivated  to  advantage  when  reader  and 
hearer  have  not  a  moment  to  spare  for  mere  matters  of 
form.  Training  is  one  thing,  knowledge  is  another ;  the 
shortest  cut  to  knowledge  will  generally  be  found  to  be 
the  best.  After  one  has  resided  long  enough  in  a  foreign 
country,  he  acquires  the  power  of  catching  directly  ideas 
expressed  in  the  language  of  that  country,  without  hav- 
ing to  subject  the  words  to  any  intermediate  process  of 
translation.  When  one  has  reached  this  stage,  he  cannot 
do  better  than  to  receive  statements  of  fact  and  opinion 
just  as  they  are  given,  to  let  them  act  upon  him  with  undi- 
minished  force,  instead  of  weakening  their  impression 
by  seeking  to  give  them  an  intermediate  and  necessarily 
imperfect  shape. 

The  labor,  it  is  perhaps  superfluous  to  say,  was  wearing. 
One  cannot  attend  twenty-five  hours  of  lecture  per 
week,  taking  full  notes,  and  not  feel  his  brain  and  fingers 
grow  weary.  In  addition  to  the  lectures,  I  had  a  good 
deal  of  collateral  reading.  Besides  finishing  the  Insti- 
tutes of  Justinian,  I  also  read  with  an  older  student  a 
number  of  selected  titles  from  the  Digest,  worked  up  my 
notes  as  fast  as  they  accumulated,  consulted  such  works 
as  Vangerow  and  Goeschen  on  the  Pandects,  and  Berner 
on  Criminal  Law,  to  say  nothing  of  Rudorff 's  Rechts- 
geschichte  and  Keller's  History  of  Civil  Procedure  by 
Formulae^  and  reviewed  the  greater  part  of  Puchta.  My 
relations  with  Dr.  Maxen  became  more  and  more  inti- 
mate. The  doctor  had  several  ways  of  extracting  infor- 
mation without  seeming  to  question ;  his  favorite  method 


THE  PANDECTS.^  157 


was  to  start  some  very  heretical  proposition  and  lure  his 
victim  on  to  combatting  it  vigorously.  He  was,  there- 
fore, accurately  posted,  not  only  as  to  what  I  was  hearing 
and  reading,  but  also  the  greater  or  less  extent  to  which 
I  had  really  mastered  the  subjects.  At  the  end  of  the 
semester,  he  said  to  me  in  an  encouraging  manner :  "  You 
have  certainly  done  well  so  far.  I  don't  know  how  long 
you  will  be  able  to  keep  up  this  rate  of  work,  but  if  you 
can  only  hold  out  until  next  Fall,  and  can  be  exempted 
from  examination  in  German  law,  you  might  perhaps  "  go 
in  "  for  your  degree.  But  you  must  consult  Ribben- 
tropp.  He  is  not  the  dean  of  the  faculty  at  present,  but 
he  is  the  Nestor,  and  if  he  takes  an  interest  in  you,  your 
chances  are  good.  I  cannot  help  you  directly  in  the 
matter,  but  I  can  do  something  indirectly.  There  is  a 
mass  of  work  yet  to  be  done.  You  must  have  Ecclesias- 
tical Law  and  a  Pandecten  Practicum^  and  go  through  a 
regular  Repetitorium.  I  hope  to  be  able  to  organize  one 
this  summer.  Several  students  have  made  application, 
but  I  am  not  willing  to  take  everybody,  and  four  is  the 
limit.  If  three  of  the  right  kind  offer  themselves,  shall  I 
reserve  the  fourth  place  for  you  ? "  I  thanked  him 
warmly,  and  assured  him  that  it  would  meet  my  wishes 
exactly  to  place  myself  for  an  entire  term  under  his  per- 
sonal supervision. 

14 


CHAPTER  XL 
The  American  Colony  —  Birthdays. 

OTTINGEN  has  always  been  an  attractive  plate  to 
Americans.  Scarcely  a  semester  has  elapsed  in 
the  past  twenty  or  thirty  years  without  the  attendance  of 
at  least  four  or  five.  In  the  summer  of  1861,  just  before 
my  arrival,  the  number  amounted  to  eighteen,  just  enough 
to  organize  a  base-ball  club  and  play  one  game  on  the 
Lower  Marsh.  The  fame  of  that  trial  of  athletic  skill 
has  not  been  dimmed  by  the  course  of  time.  Those  who 
participated  in  it  will  know  what  I  mean.  During  the 
winter  of  1861-2,  the  number  was  nine  or  ten.  The  next 
summer  it  dropped  to  two.  The  following  winter  it  rose 
to  eight.  In  the  summer  it  again  dropped  to  four.  In 
the  winter  of  1863-4  it  was  ten,  in  the  following  summer 
only  four.  The  reader  will  observe  that  the  falling  off 
took  place  in  summer.  This  was  due,  I  am  inclined  to 
believe,  to  the  superior  attractiveness  of  Heidelberg  as  a 
place  of  summer  resort.  In  my  student  days  Heidelberg 
was  the  fashionable  university,  and  a  wonderfully  cosmo- 
politan place  for  its  size.  When  I  visited  it  in  the 
autumn  of  1864,  there  were  nearly  forty  American  stu- 
dents, almost  as  many  Englishmen,  not  a  few  Frenchmen, 
Greeks,  Poles  and  Italians,  to  say  nothing  of  the  numer- 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONY— BIRTHDA  YS.       159 

ous  English  and  American  families  residing  there  per- 
manently. I  counted,  one  evening,  eighteen  or  twenty 
of  my  countrymen  at  one  time  in  the  same  caf6.  At 
present,  the  fashionable  university  is  Leipsic. 

The  Americans  in  Gottingen  styled  themselves  the 
"  colony."  Who  invented  the  name,  I  am  unable  to  state. 
It  certainly  outdates  my  recollections.  The  oldest 
American  resident  was  eo  ipso  "the  patriarch."  It 
was  his  duty  to  be  on  the  look-out  for  newcomers,  give 
them  assistance  in  the  way  of  finding  rooms  and  the  like, 
and  take  charge  of  the  colony  record  and  flag.  The 
record  was  a  simple  note-book,  rather  handsomely  bound, 
in  which  the  newcomers  entered  their  names  and  resi- 
dences at  home.  The  flag  was  a  small  piece  of  canvas 
painted  in  the  likeness  of  the  stars  and  stripes,  and 
framed.  When  a  patriarch  left  Gottingen,  it  was  his 
duty  to  transfer  the  flag  and  book  to  the  next  oldest 
resident. 

Not  having  the  record  before  me,  I  am  unable  to  speak 
with  any  certainty  concerning  the  earlier  members  of  the 
colony.  Only  three  or  four  names  occur  to  me,  namely 
those  of  Mr.  Bancroft,  our  Minister  at  Berlin,  Professor 
Goodwin  of  Harvard,  Professors  Joy  and  Chandler  of 
Columbia  College,  and  Professor  Nason  of  the  Rensselaer 
Polytechnic.  The  Gottingen  colony,  although  never  very 
numerous,  had  one  decided  superiority  over  Heidelberg 
and  perhaps  also  over  Bonn.  It  was  more  homogeneous, 
the  individual  members  were  well  disposed  one  toward 
the  other.  In  my  student  days,  which  covered  the  period 


160  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

of  our  great  civil  war,  the  party  line  between  Southerner 
and  Northerner  was  drawn  very  sharply  in  Heidelberg. 
The  two  sets  did  not  quarrel,  to  any  extent,  but  they  kept 
aloof  from  each  other.     In  Gottingen,  there  were  never 
more  than  two  Southerners  together  at  a  time,  and  they 
did  not,  I  am  happy  to  say,  constitute  an  element  of  dis- 
cord.    Although  holding  their  own  political  views,  they 
did  not  put  them  forward  in  a  way  to  offend  others.    The 
consequence  was  that  our  little  colony  lived  in  perfect 
harmony.     We  saw  a  good  deal  of  one  another,  and  were 
in  the  main  what  might  be  called  a  "jolly  set."     We  cer- 
tainly were  very  jolly  during  the  winter  of  1863-4.     For 
my  own  part,  I  shall  always  look  back  to  that  winter  with 
feelings  of  peculiar  pleasure.      We  numbered  ten,  and 
did  not  count  a  single  black  sheep,  a  single  idler.     We 
represented  nearly  all  the  leading   branches  of  study  J 
there  was  one  man  in  theology,  another  in  philology,  my- 
self in  law,  two  in  medicine,  the  rest  in  chemistry.    Each 
man  worked  away  for  himself,  in  very  independent  style, 
but  our  social  reunions  were  numerous.     To  say  nothing 
of  casual  meetings  on  working  days,  in  one  or  another  of 
the  dozen  Kneipen  and  cafes  about  town,  we  invariably 
turned  out  in    force  at  the  Kaffee-concerte   held  every 
Saturday  afternoon  in  the  music  hall  of  the  Museum. 
These  Kaffee-concerte ',  otherwise  styled  family  concerts, 
were  open  only  to  members  of  the  Museum  and  their 
families,  but  as  nearly  all  the  students  were  members,  the 
student  attendance  was  the  leading  element.     Philistia 
alone  was  excluded.     The  music  was  instrumental,  and 


THE  AMERICAN  COLON Y—  BIR THDA  YS.       1 6 1 

was  given  by  the  University  orchestra.  It  was  good,  bat 
—  for  Germany  —  not  very  good.  Still,  it  was  all  that 
could  be  had  in  those  days.*  The  order,  I  need  scarcely 
say,  was  excellent.  There  were  no  seats  in  the  English 
or  American  fashion.  The  body  of  the  hall  was  filled 
with  small  tables,  around  which  the  audience  sat  on  de- 
tached chairs.  Although  in  theory  any  one  was  free  to 
sit  at  any  table,  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  professors  and 
their  families  occupied  one  part  of  the  room,  the  Privat- 
docenten  another,  the  students  still  another.  Smoking 
and  drinking  went  on  uninterruptedly,  conversation  was 
suspended  during  the  performance  of  a  piece.  One  was 
at  liberty  to  pass  from  table  to  table  during  the  intervals, 
and  exchange  salutations  with  his  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances. The  "  women-folk "  occupied  themselves  with 
their  knitting  or  crochet-work,  and  sipped  coffee.  The 
men  generally  preferred  something  stronger.  It  may  be 
interesting  to  study  the  table  of  say  Hofrath  So  and  So. 
The  learned  Hofrath  himself  sits  puffing  philosophically 
from  a  twenty  dollar  (per  mille)  cigar  and  evolving  all 
sorts  of  theories  and  definitions  with  the  gray-blue  smoke. 
Opposite  sits  the  Frau  Hofrathin,  her  attention  divided 
between  trying  to  knit  a  stocking  without  looking  at  the 
needles  and  keeping  watch  over  the  youngest  child,  a 
hopeful  youth  of  four,  who  has  a  partly  filled  glass  of 
beer  all  to  himself,  in  honor  of  the  occasion,  and  who 
seems  bent  either  upon  upsetting  said  glass  or  sliding  off 

*  I  have  learned  that  since  GCttingen  has  become  a  Prussian  town,  it  rejoices 
in  one  or  two  excellent  military  bands.    Sic  venit  gloria  mundi. 

*I4 


162  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

his  chair.  Pfui  Fritz,  wie  du  unartig  bist,  heute,  for  shame, 
how  naughty  you  are  to-day,  says  the  mother  reproach- 
fully, whereupon  Master  Fritz  makes  a  desperate  effort  to 
sit  upright  and  drink  his  beer  "  like  a  man,"  only  holding 
the  glass  in  both  hands.  The  Hofrath's  sons  are  off  at 
some  other  table,  kneiping  with  their  student  brethren. 
The  three  unmarried  daughters,  securely  sandwiched  be- 
tween papa  and  mamma,  scarcely  lift  their  eyes  from 
their  work,  but  ply  needle  and  thread  as  though  running 

a  race.     Herr  Dr. ,  who  is  verlobt  with  the  eldest,  sits 

at  a  respectful  distance  from  his  fiancee,  not  saying  much, 
but  stealing  a  sly  squeeze  of  the  hand  now  and  then 
under  the  table,  at  the  risk  of  getting  his  fingers  pricked. 
You  cannot  hear  what  is  said  at  the  table,  but,  judging 
from  the  looks  and  smiles  interchanged,  you  are  led  to 
suspect  that  there  is  a  deal  of  gossip  going  on.  In  fact, 
the  students  have  nicknamed  these  musical  entertain- 
ments Klatsch-concerte* 

Our  "  American  "  table  was  in  one  corner  of  the  hall, 
by  a  side-door,  and  conveniently  near  the  source  of 
supplies.  As  the  waiters  all  knew  us  by  face  and  name, 
and  had  an  abiding  faith  in  our  Trinkgelder,  we  did  not 
suffer  from  thirst.  Many  a  learned  professor  and  doctor 
at  the  other  end,  irate  from  long  waiting,  must  have 
anathematized  the  wretched  "service."  If  they  had  but 
known  how  the  Yankees  were  intercepting  their  supplies  ! 

*  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  state  that  German  married  women  are  fond  ot 
meeting  in  knots  of  three  and  four  in  the  afternoon  at  each  other's  houses,  for 
the  purpose  of  enjoying  a  social  cup  of  coffee.  To  these  innocent  gatherings 
their  unfeeling  liege  lords  have  given  the  name  of  Kaffeeklatsch. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONY— BIRTHDA  VS.       163 

The  reader  need  not  infer,  however,  that  our  concert- 
sessions  amounted  to  orgies.  German  students,  or 
students  in  Germany,  as  the  reader  may  prefer,  lead  in 
the  main  a  free  life,  but  in  certain  particulars  they  are 
scrupulous  observers  of  rule.  Among  themselves,  they 
throw  aside  restraint  and  drink  to  their  heart's  content, 
or  discontent.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  presence  of 
their  superiors,  they  invariably  keep  within  bounds.  I 
doubt  whether  the  wildest  Corpsbursch  would  suffer  him- 
self to  become  befuddled  with  the  eyes  of  the  whole 
university  as  it  were  upon  him.  The  thing  has  hap- 
pened, I  am  aware.  The  most  flagrant  instance  was  in 
1837,  during  the  ceremonies  attending  the  centennial 
anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the  university.  The 
students  broke  into  the  banquet-hall  before  the  ap- 
pointed time,  and  literally  ate  and  drank  up  everything, 
even  the  dishes  prepared  for  his  Majesty,  the  King  of 
Hanover.  But  then  those  were  troublous  times.  Only 
six  years  before,  in  the  winter  of  1830-1,  the  town  had 
been  the  scene  of  a  political  insurrection.  The  students 
took  the  lead  of  the  democratic  movement,  disarmed  the 
town-watch,  set  up  their  own  patrols  and  sentinels,  and 
had  possession  of  the  town  for  several  weeks.  The  in- 
surrection was  quelled  only  by  the  interference  of  an 
entire  Hanoverian  army-corps,  under  the  command  of 
General  v.  d.  Busch.  I  cannot  undertake,  of  course,  to 
speak  of  the  political  history  of  Germany.  I  can  only 
allude  to  it  in  a  general  way,  where  it  happens  to  be  con- 
nected with  the  universities.  Whoever  is  familiar  with 


164  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

the  history  of  Germany  in  the  years  between  the  Resto- 
ration of  1815  and  the  Revolution  of  1848-9,  will  know 
that  the  country  was  in  a  state  of  constant  fermentation. 
The  people,  finding  itself  disappointed  by  the  Metterni- 
chian  policy  in  its  hopes  of  political  reform,  betook 
itself  to  underhand  agitation  and  conspiracy.  The  uni- 
versities, or  rather  the  university  students,  as  representa- 
tives of  liberal,  progressive  ideas,  were  naturally  foremost 
in  this  agitation.  They  were  not  the  actual  planners  of 
the  revolutions  of  1831,  1833,  1846,  and  1848,  for  the 
head-centre  of  the  movement  was  in  Paris.  But  German 
students  were  among  the  most  conspicuous  agitators  and 
agents.  I  need  only  allude  to  such  incidents  as  the 
murder  of  Kotzebue  and  the  Wartburg  Festival,  and  to  a 
circumstance  which  is  not  generally  known,  at  least  not 
stated  in  published  works,  namely,  that  the  Polish- 
Galician  revolt  of  1846-7  was  managed  by  Polish  stu- 
dents of  the  university  of  Breslau.  I  make  this  statement 
on  the  verbal  authority  of  one  of  those  students  himself. 
The  great  year  *48-'49  came  and  went  like  a  whirlwind. 
Foremost  in  the  cause  of  democratic  ideas  were  the  stu- 
dent legions  of  Berlin  and  Vienna.  There  is  many  a 
German,  from  Senator  Schurz  down,  now  residing  among 
us  as  a  quiet  American  citizen,  who  could  tell  a  thrilling 
story  of  his  hairbreadth  'scapes  from  bayonet  and 
dungeon.  The  history  of  those  days  has  not  yet  been 
written,  but  when  it  is  written,  the  world  will  know  more 
exactly  what  share  in  it  belonged  to  the  German  students. 
Meanwhile  I  must  content  myself  with  saying  that  the 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONY— BIRTHDA  VS.       165 

universities  were  not  places  for  study  alone,  and  that  the 
students  paid  anything  but  exclusive  devotion  to  books 
and  lectures.  Each  university  was  a  larger  or  smaller 
center  of  political  agitation,  and  attracted  to  itself  the 
disturbing,  aggressive  elements  of  society.  The  manners 
of  the  students  in  those  days  were  boisterous,  turbulent, 
defiant.  The  young  men  regarded  themselves  as  the 
coryphaei  of  New  Germany,  and  asserted  their  mission 
with  all  the  recklessness  of  youth.  The  year  *48-'49,  I 
have  said,  came  and  went  like  a  whirlwind.  Apparently 
it  wrought  no  change,  it  only  confirmed  the  existing 
dynasties  in  the  possession  of  their  prerogatives.  In 
reality,  the  country  was  revolutionized.  Kings  and 
princes,  although  theoretically  absolute,  found  that  the 
unquestioned  divinity  which  once  hedged  about  their 
kingship  was  gone,  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  public 
opinion  which  could  not  be  defied.  The  end  had  not 
yet  come,  but  it  had  been  prepared.  Political  agitation 
was  still  kept  alive,  but  the  scene  for  it  was  shifted. 
Instead  of  University  Burschenschaften,  conspirators, 
clubs,  anonymous  pamphlets,  there  was  a  press  freed 
from  censorship,  and  there  were  the  several  state  diets. 
In  the  press  and  in  the  diet,  then,  the  battle  was  to  be 
fought.  The  universities  ceased  to  be  political  centres 
and  became  once  more,  what  they  always  should  have 
been,  mere  seats  of  learning.  When  I  came  to  Germany 
for  the  first  time,  in  i86i,the  change  had  been  substanti- 
ally effected,  although  traces  might  still  be  detected  now 
and  then  of  the  old  feeling.  I  have  mentioned  else-  ? 


1 66  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

where  the  circumstance  that  Bismarck,  then  representing 
the  Prussian  squirarchy,  was  groaned  by  the  students  of 
Gottingen  on  his  way  to  Berlin  in  1864.  Still  these 
were  mere  trifles,  they  did  not  constitute  a  distinguishing 
element  in  student  life. 

In  making  this  digression,  I  have  had  in  view  a  prac- 
tical object,  namely  to  put  the  reader  on  his  guard. 
Everything  written  about  German  university  life  before 
the  year  1860  must  be  taken  cum  grano  satis,  and  a  very 
liberal  dose,  at  that.  The  manners  and  character  of  the 
students  have,  beyond  all  question,  undergone  a  marked 
change.  The  student  of  the  present  day  is  not  the  stu- 
dent of  1830  or  1840  or  even  1850.  Retaining  all  his 
disdain  for  Philistia,  and  still  regarding  himself  as  a  child 
of  light,  he  no  longer  looks  upon  himself  as  an  armed 
apostle  of  the  new  gospel  and  subject  only  to  the 
martial  law  of  his  own  invention.  He  feels  more  and 
more  that  he  is  but  one  and  not  the  most  important  link 
in  the  great  political  nexus.  He  is  soberer,  toned  down, 
disposed  to  look  upon  his  university  membership  as  a 
means  of  social  and  intellectual  enjoyment  rather  than 
a  stronghold  for  offense  and  defense.  He  drinks  less, 
duels  less,  studies  more,  and  intrigues  not  at  all.  I  was 
impressed  with  the  metamorphosis  on  revisiting  Germany 
in  1872-3.  Although  then  occupying  a  position  which 
obliged  me  to  study  the  press  and  political  movements 
very  closely  for  months,  I  never  had  occasion  to  note 
any  political  demonstrations  on  the  part  of  students.  I 
met  many  of  them  who  had  served  in  the  campaign 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONY— BIRTHDA  VS.       167 

against  France  and  had  returned  home  to  finish  their 
studies.  They  had  their  opinions,  and  expressed  them 
freely  enough  when  invited  to  do  so.  But  they  certainly 
did  not  obtrude  them,  and  seemed  to  hold  rather  aloof 
from  domestic  politics.  The  only  topic  of  general 
interest  was  the  relations  of  Germany  to  the  rest  of 
Europe,  and  here  national  pride  and  the  flush  of  success 
made  them  as  one  man. 

The  Kaffeconcerte  —  to  return  from  this  digression  into 
politics  and  history  —  are  as  good  an  illustration  as  I  can 
give  of  the  great  freedom  of  intercourse  existing  in  Ger- 
many between  professor  and  student.  I  say  freedom 
of  intercourse,  rather  than  intimacy.  There  is  no  such 
thing  in  general  as  intimacy  between  students  and  pro- 
fessors, and  there  never  will  be.  The  reason  is  obvious  ; 
personal  intimacy  implies  equality  of  age  and  standing 
and  congeniality  of  taste  and  character,  things  which  do 
not  exist  as  between  old  and  young,  the  mature  and  the 
immature.  So  far  as  my  observation  extends,  the  rela- 
tion between  student  and  professor  is  formal,  ceremo- 
nious. In  the  majority  of  cases,  the  student  does  not 
come  in  personal  contact  with  the  teachers  in  his  own 
department ;  he  merely  salutes  them  in  the  street  and  in 
other  public  places.  As  to  the  professors  in  other 
departments,  he  does  not  even  know  them  by  sight.  It 
is  difficult  to  make  this  relation  intelligible  to  the  ordi- 
nary American  collegian,  who,  I  venture  to  say,  regards 
his  professor  as  one  either  to  fight  or  to  run  away  from. 
Perhaps  the  best  way  of  making  the  case  clear  is  to  show 


1 68  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES 

what  the  relation  is  not.  In  the  first  place,  the  student 
has  not  to  look  upon  his  lecturers  as  men  whose  daily 
business  is  to  gauge  his  weakness  and  keep  an  exact 
mathematical  record  of  the  same.  In  the  next  place,  he 
knows  that  his  lecturers  have  nothing  to  do  with  his 
general  deportment,  and  are  not  even  his  judges. 
Finally,  he  knows  that  they  are  men  who  exact  nothing 
from  him  but  a  decent  observance  of  etiquette,  and  men 
from  whom  he  can  expect  nothing  in  the  way  of  protec- 
tion or  favor.  In  consequence,  the  student  experiences 
no  temptation  either  to  annoy  his  professor  or  to  flunkey 
to  him.  He  preserves  a  manly  independence,  while  pay- 
ing to  age  and  talent  the  proper  tribute  of  respect.  At 
Gottingen,  where  there  was  in  my  day  but  one  tolerable 
billiard  table, —  the  one  in  the  Museum, —  I  have  taken 
part  in  many  a  game  of  "  pool  "  with  the  Privat-docenten, 
professors  of  the  university,  and  teachers  in  the  gymna- 
sium. No  one  seemed  to  think  that  there  was  anything 
out  of  the  way  in  a  full  professor  of  mathematics  and  a 
Fuchs  in  the  legal  department  trying  to  "  kill "  each 
other  and  laughing  at  each  other's  "  scratches."  In 
Leipsic,  I  have  seen  Zarncke,  the  leading  professor 
of  Germanistic  philology  and  then  (1872)  rector  of  the 
university,  drop  in  at  the  Universif'its-Keller  of  an  even- 
ing and  sit  down  to  a  glass  of  Pilsener  with  a  naivety 
that  would  have  horrified  our  college  trustees  and  facul- 
ties. As  to  such  a  university  as  Marburg,  there  was  one 
Kneipe  in  particular  where  one  might  see,  every  evening 
in  the  week,  a  perfect  medley  of  students,  Privat-docenten, 


THE  AMERICAN  COLON  Y — BIR  THDA  YS.       169 

professors,  and  officers.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  misunder- 
stood. Professors  and  Privat-docenten  are  anything  but 
hard  drinkers,  or  even  regular  frequenters  of  beer- 
saloons.  They  have  too  much  to  do,  and  lead  a  rather 
abstemious  life.  But  this  much  at  least  I  can  say  with 
safety,  that  they  feel  none  of  that  false  restraint  which 
hangs  over  the  American  professor  like  a  cloud  and 
makes  his  life  so  isolated.  No  man  in  Germany  hesitates 
as  to  the  propriety  of  taking  his  supper  and  meeting  his 
friends  in  a  beer-saloon,  for  he  knows  that  his  coming 
and  going  will  be  looked  upon  as  a  matter  of  course. 

There  are  many  conditions  of  things  where  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  ascertain  what  is  cause  and  what  is  effect.  Do 
respectable  people  frequent  public  saloons  in  Germany 
because  they  are  orderly,  or  are  the  saloons  orderly 
because  of  the  respectable  people  who  frequent  them? 
I  cannot  take  it  upon  myself  to  decide  this  delicate  ques- 
tion. I  can  only  state  the  broad  fact,  that  what  in 
America  would  be  considered  undignified,  a  sort  of  loss 
of  caste,  is  in  Germany  an  every-day  affair.  Men  of  the 
most  eminent  scholarly  attainments,  leading  the  most 
irreproachable  lives,  as  jealous  of  their  reputation  as  men 
well  can  be,  not  only  attend  beer  concerts  and  other 
places  of  public  amusement,  but  take  their  wives  and 
daughters  with  them;  they  enjoy  an  hour  or  two  of 
music,  in  the  open  air  if  possible,  meet  their  friends  and 
neighbors,  and  return  to  their  homes  refreshed  by  inno- 
cent recreation.  Are  the  Germans  so  much  better  than 
we,  or  do  we  fear  the  devil  so  much  that  we  cannot  con- 


170  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

front  him  boldly  and  banish  him  to  the  realms  of  outer 
darkness  ? 

In  addition  to  the  Kaffeeconcerte,  the  work  of  the  win- 
ter of  1863-4  was  enlivened  by  a  number  of  private 
social  gatherings  among  the  Americans.  Our  colony 
numbered,  I  have  said,  ten.  It  was  a  curious  phenome- 
non that  no  less  than  six  of  the  ten  had  their  birthdays 
to  celebrate  during  the  three  months  of  December,  Jan- 
uary, and  February.  It  would  be  ungracious  in  me  to 
insinuate  that  the  calendar  had  been  tampered  with. 
When  a  countryman  surprised  me  at  my  books,  staying 
long  enough  to  help  himself  to  a  fresh  cigar,  and  state,  in 
an  off-hand  way,  that  he  would  be  glad  to  have  the  pleas- 
ure of  my  company  the  next  Saturday  night,  at  such  a 
place,  in  honor  of  his  birthday — "  merely  a  few  friends  " — 
of  course  the  only  thing  to  do  was  to  put  on  a  smiling 
mien  and  make  the  best  of  it.  But  it  was  remarkable 
that  a  birthday  should  come  around  regularly  every  fort- 
night, to  say  nothing  of  the  convenience  of  its  always 
happening  on  a  Saturday. 

Our  birthday  celebrations  were  an  odd  mixture  of  the 
German  and  the  American.  The  eatables  and  drinkables 
were  German,  and  we  observed,  in  the  main,  the  rules 
about  Vortrinken  and  Nachtrinken,  but  the  toasts  and 
speech-making,  and  the  general  atmosphere  of  the  enter- 
tainment, were  intensely  trans-Atlantic.  The  few  Ger- 
mans who  were  invited  had  a  good  opportunity  of 
becoming  acquainted  with  the  merits  of  such  stirring 
ditties  as  "  John  Brown,"  "  Rolling  Home,"  and  "  Smith 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONY—  BIR THDA  YS.       171 

is   a   Jolly   Good    Fellow,   Which   Nobody  can  Deny." 

H ,  who  was  understood  to  be  "  cramming  "  for  his 

degree  in  classic  philology,  was  invariably  called  upon 
for  the  boat-song  of  the  Argonautic  Expedition. 

Further  description  is  unnecessary.  The  reader  can 
easily  imagine  what  a  party  of  the  kind  must  be. 
Our  birthday  celebrations  were  no  better  and  no  worse 
than  such  affairs  usually  are.  There  was  some  sense 
talked,  and  a  good  deal  of  nonsense ;  but  there  was  no 
quarreling.  We  were  friends,  glad  to  meet  one  another 
and  have  a  good  time  together.  Our  reunions  broke  up 
the  dull  monotony  of  work.  As  to  the  morality  of  wine- 
parties,  especially  among  students,  that  is  a  question 
which  the  reader  can  settle  for  himself,  bearing  in  mind 
the  truism  that  Germany  is  not  America.  Out  of  the 
ten  who  composed  our  set,  not  one  was  intemperate  at 
the  time,  or  has  since  become  so.  Most  of  the  ten  are 
now  married  and  occupying  responsible  positions  in 
society.  We  all  worked  fairly  at  that  time,  and  some 
worked  very  hard.  Not  one  of  us  ever  dreamed  for  an 
instant  that  he  was  committing  an  impropriety  in  knock- 
ing off  work  at  the  end  of  the  week  and  kneiping  with 
his  associates.  We  learned  to  distinguish  very  clearly 
between  a  man  who  knows  how  to  live,  and  a  sot.  It 
was  not  a  difficult  lesson.  Every  schoolboy  in  Germany 
learns  it  in  Prima. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

"Spurting" 

HAVING  every  reason  to  expect  that  the  coming  sum- 
mer semester  would  probably  decide  my  chances 
as  a  candidate  for  the  degree  of  Doctor  Juris,  I  thought  it 
advisable  to  prepare  for  it  by  taking  a  rest  in  the  spring 
vacation.  There  was  no  necessity  for  revisiting  Wies- 
baden, as  my  health  throughout  the  winter  had  been 
unexceptionable.  But  feeling  attached  to  the  place,  and 
confident  that  the  bathing  would  at  least  do  no  harm,  I 
took  a  second  Cur  of  a  fortnight.  The  spring  of  1864 
was  quite  backward,  and  the  weather,  even  on  the  Rhine, 
uncomfortably  chilly.  The  season  had  not  yet  com- 
menced, and  the  number  of  guests  was  extremely  small. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  the  place  was  langweilig,  yet  the 
change  and  the  entire  absence  of  excitement  were  prob- 
ably the  best  thing  for  me  under  the  circumstances. 
After  suffering  myself  to  be  bored  unmercifully  for  a 
fortnight,  I  ran  over  to  Heidelberg  and  from  there  down 
the  Rhine  as  far  as  Coblenz,  returning  to  Guttingen  by 
the  valley  of  the  Lahn  and  Cassel. 

The  last  week  of  the  vacation  was  passed  in  making 
preparations  for  the  semestrial  work.  I  decided  to  hear 
only  two  lectures,  one  on  Ecclesiastical  Law,  by  Herr- 


SPURTING.  173 


mann,  and  one  on  Erbrecht,  by  Francke.  This  latter 
subject  I  had  heard  in  the  winter,  but  as  Schlesinger  had 
not  succeeded  in  making  the  subject  clear. to  me,  and  as 
Francke,  if  I  went  into  the  examination,  would  be  one 
of  the  chief  examiners,  I  deemed  it  expedient  to  take 
the  course  over  again. 

Subsequent  events  proved  that  I  was  right.  Besides 
these  lectures,  I  took  a  Pandecten-practicum  with  Thb'l. 
This  bears  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  Moot  Courts  in 
our  Law  Schools.  Thol  met  his  hearers  once  every  week 
for  two  hours.  At  each  meeting,  a  practical  case  was 
given  out  for  discussion.  Our  opinions  upon  it  were 
submitted,  in  writing,  the  next  week,  and  returned  to  us, 
with  the  professor's  criticisms,  the  third  week.  This 
returning  did  not  consist  in  merely  handing  the  papers 
back,  like  compositions  with  marginal  corrections.  After 
each  member  of  the  class  had  placed  his  paper  before 
him,  the  professor  took  up  the  question  and  discussed  it 
in  all  its  bearings,  stating  what  his  own  views  were,  show- 
ing what  views  had  been  presented  by  the  members  of 
the  class,  which  of  those  views  were  correct,  which  in- 
correct, but  not  mentioning  names.  Each  student  could 
see  for  himself,  however,  where  he  had  made  a  mistake. 
These  verbal  discussions  —  they  were  not  arguments  in 
our  legal  acceptation  of  the  term  —  were  very  informal. 
The  students  were  at  liberty  to  interrupt  the  professor 
whenever  they  felt  the  need  of  fuller  explanations.  If 
any  time  remained  after  this  exhaustive  discussion  of  the 
question  set  for  the  day,  the  professor  utilized  it  by  sub- 


174  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

mitting  one  .or  more  short  cases  to  be  analyzed  on  the 
spot. 

I  give  one  of  the  set  cases.  It  is  a  very  easy  one.  A 
has  a  claim  against  B  of  $100;  B  against  C  of  $120 ;  C 
against  D  of  $130;  D  against  A  of  $140.  Meeting  by 
chance,  they  discover,  in  the  course  of  conversation,  that 
there  is  the  sum  of  $100  mutually  claimed  and  owed  by 
all  four.  This  they  agree  to  cancel,  leaving  the  balance 
of  the  claims  to  run.  Some  time  after,  C  finds  among 
the  papers  of  his  father,  from  whom  the  debt  of  $120 
devolved  by  inheritance,  evidence  that  this  debt  had 
already  been  paid  to  B.  What  remedy  has  C,  and  what 
is  the  legal  character  of  the  agreement  entered  into  by 
the  four  to  cancel  the  common  claim  of  $100  ? 

These  practical  exercises  are  of  great  advantage  to  the 
students.  They  are,  I  believe,  better  than  our  Moot 
Courts.  The  questions  submitted  are  generally  of  a 
higher  order,  and  more  complicated  in  their  nature,*  and 
—  the  main  point  —  the  exercises  are  better  adapted  to 
teaching  the  class.  The  necessity  of  writing  out  one's 
opinions  at  length  every  week  and  submitting  them  to 
the  deliberate  inspection  of  the  professor,  has  the  ten- 
dency to  make  one  careful.  Now  and  then  a  Moot  Court 
case  is  well  argued,  but  generally  the  so  called  arguments 
are  too  wordy  and  rhetorical.  Besides,  there  is  a  great 
difference  between  speaking  once  in  three  months  or  six 


*  The  one  given  above  is  by  no  means  a  fair  specimen,  but  the  others  con- 
tained in  my  Lecture  Ms.  are  too  long  and  presuppose  too  much  knowl- 
edge of  Roman  law. 


SPURTING.  175 


months,  and  writing  out  an  opinion  once  every  week  for 
an  entire  semester. 

The  Pandecten-practicum  covers  only  the  substance  of 
civil  law.  The  more  advanced  students  have  practical 
exercises  of  a  similar  nature  in  Criminal  Law,  in  Eccle- 
siastical Law,  and  in  Procedure  and  Evidence. 

Francke's  lectures  on  the  Law  of  Inheritance  were 
extremely  clear  and  satisfactory.  As  the  lecturer  spoke 
slowly,  there  was  no  difficulty  in  taking  him  down  ver- 
batim. The  subject  is  complicated,  so  complicated,  in 
fact,  that  I  can  not  hope  to  give  the  reader  even  an  out- 
line. I  can  only  call  attention  to  one  or  two  cardinal 
points.  The  Roman  Law  has  a  much  more  philosophical 
conception  of  succession  by  inheritance  than  the  English 
Law.  It  regards  the  personality  of  the  deceased  as  in  a 
measure  continued  after  death,  that  is  to  say,  all  the 
property,  whether  real  or  personal,  all  claims  held  by,  all 
debts  due  by  the  deceased,  everything  in  short  that  does 
not  perish  with  him,  devolves  as  a  unit  upon  one  or  more 
persons  who  represent  him,  who  continue  his  existence, 
as  it  were.  The  heres  succeeds  to  the  defunct,  is  entitled 
to  all  his  property,  is  under  obligation  to  pay  all  his 
debts,  heres  defuncti  locum  sustinet.  Our  Common  Law, 
hampered  from  the  outset  by  the  feudal  distinction  be- 
tween real  and  personal  property,  has  never  yet  succeeded 
in  elaborating  a  satisfactory  theory  of  inheritance.  The 
Roman  Law,  on  the  other  hand,  labored  under  a  diffi- 
culty peculiar  to  itself.  It  was  in  the  beginning 
extremely  illiberal  in  doctrine  and  rigid  in  its  forms. 


176  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

The  Praetorian  edicts  effected  gradually  a  thorough 
equitable  reform,  by  admitting  the  claims  of  kinsmen 
who  were  not  entitled  under  the  old  law  of  the  XII 
Tables,  by  smoothing  over  mistakes  in  drawing  up  wills, 
and  by  checking  as  much  as  possible,  in  favor  of  lineal 
descendants,  the  privilege  of  disinheritance.  The  de- 
velopment of  the  Roman  law  of  inheritance  is,  in  fine,  the 
history  of  a  protracted  struggle  between  the  narrow- 
mindedness  of  the  old  hereditas  and  the  equity  of  the 
Praetorian  bonorum  possessio.  The  Praetor  had  no  right 
to  repeal  or  formally  overthrow  the  old  law,  but  what  he 
was  unable  to  accomplish  directly,  he  did  indirectly. 
Like  the  English  Chancellor,  the  keeper  of  his  Majesty's 
conscience,  he  could  not  say  that  such  and  such  a  claim- 
ant was  not  legally  entitled,  but  he  could  in  various  ways 
prevent  him  from  enforcing  the  claim. 

A  most  interesting  course  of  lectures  was  that  de- 
livered by  Herrmann  on  Ecclesiastical  Law.  The 
lecturer's  delivery  was  fluent,  almost  too  fluent  for  those 
who  wished  to  take  complete  notes,  but  his  language  was 
clear,  and  the  substance  of  his  remarks  was,  to  me  at 
least,  intensely  interesting.  I  can  not  but  regret  that  no 
one  of  our  law  schools  has  seen  fit  to  introduce  such  a 
topic  in  its  curriculum.  Surely,  in  view  of  the  conflict 
between  church  and  state  now  raging  over  Europe,  it  is 
of  the  highest  importance  that  the  lawyers  and  jurists  of 
every  land  calling  itself  civilized  should  be  acquainted 
with  the  principles  involved  in  the  issue.  The  primitive 
organization  of  the  Christian  Church,  the  growth  of  the 


SPURTING.  177 


hierarchy,  the  concentration  of  power  first  in  the  hands 
of  the  priests,  then  of  the  bishops,  finally  of  the  Pope, 
the  Oriental  Schism,  the  Reformation,  the  Declaration 
of  Gallican  Independence,  Josephismus  in  Austria, 
the  scope  and  functions  of  Concordates,  the  claims  of 
the  Church  to  the  exclusive  regulation  of  marriage  and 
divorce,  the  provisions  of  the  Council  of  Trent  on  this 
point,  the  Westphalian  Treaty  of  Peace,  are  all  subjects 
fraught  with  the  deepest  interest  to  every  liberal  thinker. 
Herrmann's  lectures  were  to  me  a  pleasure  rather  than  a 
burden,  while  the  notes  then  taken  have  since  been  of 
great  service  to  me  on  more  than  one  occasion.  I  am^ 
indebted  to  them  for  a  very  clear  and  comprehensive 
survey  of  the  march  of  Christian  society  during  eighteen 
centuries. 

Gottingen  being  an  exclusively  Protestant  university, 
nearly  all  the  professors  and  students  were  in  my  day 
Protestant.  Herrmann  treated  the  subject  of  Ecclesi- 
astical Law,  accordingly,  from  the  Protestant  point  of 
view,  but  without  becoming  polemic.  His  exposition  of 
the  theory  and  doctrines  of  the  Catholic  Church,  being 
based  upon  Catholic  authorities,  was  eminently  fair. 
Indeed,  the  object  of  the  course  was  to  acquaint  the 
hearer  with  the  facts  of  history  and  the  actual  shaping 
of  principles  and  doctrines,  rather  than  to  defend  or  to 
controvert  any  one  system.  Herrmann  now  occupies  the 
most  important  ecclesiastical  position  in  Prussia,  to  wit, 
the  presidency  of  the  Upper  Consistory  in  Berlin. 

Before  leaving  this  subject,  I  may  add  that,  although 


V 

178  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Prussia  is  nominally  a  Protestant  country,  a  very  large 
number,  six  or  seven  millions  of  its  population,  are 
Catholics.  They  are  to  be  found  chiefly  in  the  Rhine 
provinces  and  in  Polish  Prussia.  In  organizing  its 
system  of  education,  the  government  has  taken  their 
wishes  and  needs  into  account,  by  constituting  what  are 
called  paritetic  universities,  in  addition  to  the  Catholic 
gymnasiums.  Bonn  is  one  of  these  universities,  Breslau 
another,*  and  Munster  is  an  exclusively  Catholic 
academy,  falling  very  little  short  of  a  university.  In 
such  paritetic  institutions,  all  departments  where  there  is 
conflict  of  religious  opinion  are  supplied  with  double 
sets  of  professors.  The  Catholic  professor  of  Ecclesi- 
astical Law  at  Bonn  was  Walter,  between  whom  and 
Richter,  the  Protestant  professor  in  Berlin,  there  was  un- 
ceasing warfare.  Both  men  being  aggressive  by  nature, 
neither  could  let  the  other  alone.  It  is  entertaining  to 
read  their  respective  treatises  and  observe  the  numerous 
flat  denials,  corrections,  and  sneers  that  each  hurls  at  the 
other.  Schulte,  probably  an  abler  man  than  the  other 
two,  is  less  dogmatic  and  positive ;  his  text-book  of  Cath- 
olic Ecclesiastical  Law  is  the  best  of  the  kind  produced 
in  modern  times. 

The  reader  can  perceive  that  two  lectures  a  day,  and 
an  elaborate  opinion  in  writing  once  a  week,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  collateral  reading,  did  not  leave  much  unemployed 
time.  But  the  most  searching  part  of  the  semestrial  work 
has  yet  to  be  mentioned.  Dr.  Maxen  succeeded  -in 

*  TUbingen  is  also  paritetic,  although  not  a  Prussian  university. 


SPURTING.  179 


forming  his  Repetitorium,  or  Exegeticum,  as  he  called  it.* 
The  three  members  beside  myself  were  students  in  their 
sixth  semester,  preparing  for  the  State  examination  at 
Celle  in  the  fall.  We  met  six  times  a  week,  at  the  doc- 
tor's rooms,  from  twelve  to  one  o'clock.  The  exercise 
was  what  medical  students  call  a  "  quiz,  "  and  did  ample 
justice  to  the  name.  We  students  naturally  thought  that 
we  knew  at  least  some  law,  but  one  or  two  quizzes  were 
sufficient  to  convince  us  that  we  knew  nothing.  The  doc- 
tor's method  was,  in  appearance,  as  immethodical  as  one 
could  imagine.  We  never  knew  before  the  hour  what 
topic  he  might  take  up,  and  consequently  were  unable  to 
prepare  ourselves.  This  seemed  to  me  unsatisfactory, 
and  I  ventured  to  say  as  much  to  the  doctor,  in  private. 
At  this  he  only  laughed,  and  replied  :  "  That  is  precisely 
what  I  aim  at  doing,  to  make  you  dissatisfied.  If  I  gave 
you  ten  or  twenty  pages  of  Vangerow  or  Arndts  to 
recite  upon,  you  would  get  the  work  by  heart,  I  dare  say, 
and  forget  it  again  in  a  week.  But  if  I  catch  you  to-day 
on  some  point  that  has  never  occurred  to  you,  you  will 
feel  vexed  at  yourself,  and  when  you  return  to  your 
room  you  will  look  it  up  carefully,  and  then  you  will  not 
forget  it.  My  business  is  not  to  discover  what  you  know, 
but  what  you  do  not  know,  and  the  best  way  of  doing  that 
is  to  keep  changing  the  subject  unexpectedly.  I  wis*h  to 
catch  you  unprepared,  for  then  I  shall  certainly  detect 


*  It  was  in  reality  a  course  of  private  lessons.  Each  one's  share  of  the 
expense,  as  well  as  I  can  remember,  amounted  to  thirty  or  thirty-five  cents  an 
hour. 


l8o  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

7 

the  defects  in  your  reading.  Besides,  is  it  not  the  best 
preparation  for  the  examination  ?  What  you  need  is  not 
only  the  knowledge  of  facts  and  principles,  but  the 
ability  to  answer  all  sorts  of  questions  that  may  be 
sprung  upon  you.  Relieve  your  mind  by  considering 
that  every  hour  spent  with  me  is  an  informal  examina- 
tion, and  not  a  recitation,  and  be  assured  that  you  are  not 
the  first  set  of  young  men  that  I  have  had  in  training." 

Notwithstanding  the  doctor's  assurances,  and  the  firm 
confidence  that  I  had  in  his  ability  and  sincerity,  I  felt 
many  misgivings  for  the  first  month  or  two.  It  seemed 
as  though  we  were  making  no  progress,  as  though  our 
modest  but  hard-bought  attainments  were  a  sort  of  ten- 
pins, set  up  only  to  be  knocked  down  again.  Perhaps 
the  reader  has  taken  boxing  lessons  himself,  or  at  least 
has  seen  one  or  more  of  them.  In  that  case,  he  will  be 
able  to  appreciate  the  simile,  when  I  liken  myself  and  my 
three  fellow-victims  to  pupils  in  the  manly  art  of  self- 
defense  being  "  punished "  mercilessly  by  the  master. 
Mr.  Bristed,  in  his  book  on  Cambridge,  p.  193  sqq.  (ed. 
of  1873),  has  given  a  very  racy  account  of  the  way  in 
which  "  coaching  "  is  conducted  in  an  English  univer- 
sity. I  regret  extremely  my  inability  to  sketch  a  like 
tableau  of  our  quiz  in  the  Georgia  Augusta.  Dr.  Maxen 
"  slanged  "  us  plentifully,  in  the  technical  sense  of  that 
term ;  that  is,  he  did  not  smooth  over  our  ignorance  with 
lavender-water,  but  made  us  feel  it  keenly.  Yet  his 
method  differed  radically  from  that  followed  by  Mr. 
Bristed's  coach,  Travis,  and,  furthermore,  the  subjects 


SPURTING.  181 

JL 


themselves,  the  Supplices  of  ^Eschylus  and  the  body  of 
the  Roman  Law,  can  scarcely  be  treated  after  the  same 
fashion.  Mr.  Bristed's  coaching  is  a  mere  recitation,  that 
is,  a  literal  translation,  with  running  commentary,  of  a 
given  passage  in  the  Supplices,  reproduced,  I  presume, 
from  notes  taken  at  the  time.  The  reader,  even  if  not  a 
classical  scholar,  can  at  least  follow  the  recitation  line 
by  line.  With  regard  to  our  quiz,  on  the  other  hand,  I 
must  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  subject  is  so 
foreign  to  the  reader  that,  in  order  to  make  a  description 
barely  intelligible,  I  should  be  forced  to  give  about  six 
pages  of  prefatory  explanation  to  one  of  description,  and, 
in  the  next  place,  that  the  quiz  was  an  examination,  not 
a  recitation,  the  subject  being  changed  abruptly  every 
few  minutes.  My  note-book  is  filled  with  names  and 
dates,  detached  fragments  of  law,  references  to  authori- 
ties, queries  to  be  pursued  at  leisure,  and  the  like,  but  it 
contains  nothing  that  would  give  the  reader  a  satisfac- 
tory idea  of  how  the  work  was  done. 

At  all  events,  there  was  the  satisfaction  of  perceiving 
that  my  three  co-workers  were  not  much  better  off  than 
myself.  They  knew  more  law,  but  they  did  not  hav6 
their  knowledge  in  a  more  available  shape.  Practically, 
we  were  on  an  equality.  The  real  benefit  of  the  quiz 
came  after  the  hour.  Having  the  afternoons  and  even- 
ings to  myself,  I  spent  the  time  in  reviewing,  with  the 
utmost  care,  what  the  doctor  had  run  over  hastily  in  the 
forenoon.  Still  smarting  under  the  lash  of  criticism,  to 
speak  figuratively,  and  having  some  definite  object  of 
16 


1 82  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

search,  I  ransacked  Puchta,  Arndts,  Goeschen,  Vangerow, 
and  my  notes,  for  everything  that  might  throw  addi- 
tional light  on  the  topics  that  were  started  by  the  doctor 
from  day  to  day.  I  made  no  attempt  to  prepare  for  the 
doctor  in  advance.  There  was  enough  to  do  to  follow 
up  his  hints  as  fast  as  they  were  given.  After  pursuing 
this  method  for  two  months,  the  conviction  finally 
dawned  upon  me  that  the  doctor  was  correct.  The  quiz 
was  not  only  a  powerful  stimulant,  but  it  gave  some 
object  to  my  private  reading.  Instead  of  droning  over 
one  book  at  a  time,  page  after  page  and  chapter  after 
chapter  in  consecutive  order,  I  was  forced  to  go  through 
each  book  every  day,  from  cover  to  cover,  in  search  of 
examples,  definitions,  exceptions,  authorities,  whatever, 
in  short,  might  aid  me  in  understanding  more  clearly 
half  a  dozen  points  raised  but  not  exhausted  in  the 
quiz. 

By  the  end  of  the  semester  I  made  a  further  discovery. 
Dr.  Maxen's  plan,  seemingly  immethodical,  was  in  truth 
the  highest  kind  of  method.  Running  over  my  note- 
book, I  could  see  that  the  doctor  had  covered  the  law  of 
obligations,  at  least  in  its  general  principles,  almost 
entire,  and  had  taken  in  a  large  share  of  the  law  of  real 
property  and  family  relations,  and  not  a  little  of  the  law 
of  inheritance.  While  zigzagging  to  right  and  left  in  a 
manner  that  gave  no  indication  from  one  day  to  the  next 
of  a  deep-laid  plan,  the  doctor  had  succeeded  neverthe- 
less in  starting  us  on  all  the  more  important  subjects. 
One  object  he  had  certainly  realized  :  he  had  taught  us 


SPURTING.  183 


how  to  study.  When  the  last  quizz  was  ended,  and  we 
broke  up  as  a  class,  I  felt  that  I  had  been  shifted  to  an 
altogether  new  stand-point,  that  success  in  the  examina- 
tion would  probably  resolve  itself  into  a  matter  of  time 
and  endurance. 

I  have  stated,  on  a  previous  occasion,  that  the  relation 
between  student  and  professor  is  generally  formal,  savor- 
ing little  of  intimacy.  There  are  brilliant  exceptions, 
however,  and  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  profit  directly  by 
one  of  these  exceptional  cases.  About  the  middle  of 
July,  Dr.  Maxen  said  to  me  :  "  It  is  time  that  you  should 
call  on  Ribbentropp  and  confer  with  him  on  the  subject 
of  your  examination.  He  is  not  the  Dean  of  the  faculty, 
but  he  is  the  oldest  and  most  influential  member.  You 
must  make  him  interested  in  you.  There  is  no  need  of  a 
letter  of  introduction  ;  you  will  find  him  very  charming 
and  affable." 

The  Geheimjustizrath  v.  Ribbentropp  occupied  a 
most  enviable  position.  He  had  made  his  reputation  as 
a  jurist  while  still  a  young  man,  by  his  treatise  on  the 
law  of  Correal  Obligations.  Coming  into  the  possession 
of  a  handsome  property  by  inheritance,  in  addition  to 
his  salary  as  professor,  he  was  able  to  live  in  what,  for 
Gottingen,  was  decidedly  style.  He  occupied  a  large 
house  by  himself,  something  very  unusual  in  a  German 
university  town ;  the  parlors  and  dining-room  were  on 
the  second  floor,  his  study  and  private  apartments  on  the 
third.  Over  the  ground-floor  the  housekeeper  reigned 
supreme.  Gossip  had  it  that  the  housekeeper  was  the 


1 84  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

only  person  in  the  town  who  disturbed  the  mental  quiet 
(Gemuthsruhe)  of  the  Geheimjustizrath.  Not  that  she 
was  vinegar-aspected  or  harsh  of  manner ;  but,  like  all 
spinsters  of  a  certain  age,  she  had  come  to  regard  men 
in  general,  and  old  bachelors  in  particular,  as  helpless 
beings,  whom  it  was  never  safe  to  trust  too  long  or  too 
far  out  of  sight.  The  object  of  this  anxious  supervision 
often  made  a  jest  of  it  to  his  friends. 

Summoning  up  courage,  I  called  upon  the  Geheim- 
justizrath one  evening,  and  running  successfully  the 
gauntlet  of  the  housekeeper  and  under-servant,  obtained 
admission  to  the  sanctum  sanctorum,  the  library.  I 
found  a  gentleman  not  over  sixty,  as  well  as  I  could  make 
out,  of  decidedly  distingue  bearing,  rather  short  in 
stature,  but  with  a  superbly  shaped  head,  a  winning 
smile,  and  'the  most  fascinating  pair  of  eyes  that  I  have 
ever  encountered.  Whether  perfectly  black,  or  only  of  a 
very  dark  brown,  I  am  unable  to  state  from  memory ;  but 
the  play  of  lambent  light  emitted  from  them,  joined  to 
the  witchery  of  a  humorous  smile  around  the  corners  of 
the  mouth,  gave  to  the  massive  forehead  and  classic 
features  a  grace  and  an  animation  that  were  irresistible. 
I  perceived,  at  the  very  first  glance,  that  I  was  dealing 
with  one  of  nature's  noblemen.  Speaking  frankly,  I  fell 
quite  in  love  with  the  elderly  gentleman  who  received 
me  with  such  an  uncommon  blending  of  French 
suavity  and  German  simplicity.  It  was  the  gracious 
commencement  of  an  acquaintance  that  —  to  me  cer- 
tainly—  was  to  be  fraught  with  benefit  and  pleasure. 


SPURTING.  185 


I  stated  as  briefly  as  possible  the  object  olf  my  visit, 
mentioned  the  lectures  I  had  already  heard  or  was  then 
hearing,  the  text-books  I  was  using,  the  amount  of  private 
reading  already  accomplished,  the  private  instruction 
received  from  Dr.  Maxen.  I  said  that  I  was  perfectly 
aware  of  the  incompleteness  and  hurried  nature  of  my 
course  of  study  as  a  jurist,  but  that  it  would  be  impossi- 
ble to  remain  in  Germany  beyond  the  coming  Christmas, 
and  that  I  was  anxious  to  take  back  with  me  to  America 
tangible  evidence  of  my  industry  in  the  shape  of  a 
degree.  Would  he  have  the  kindness  to  give  me  his 
opinion  frankly  as  to  my  chances  of  being  admitted  to 
examination,  and  advise  me  generally  as  a  friend  ? 

He  listened  patiently,  with  the  same  bright,  flashing 
look  of  the  eye,  and  the  same  good-natured  smile. 
"  Stop  a  moment,"  he  said,  "  don't  you  smoke  ?  "  I  hesi- 
tated. I  was  a  smoker,  but  then  it  did  not  seem  to  be 
exactly  "  the  thing "  to  be  puffing  at  such  a  solemn 
audience  in  the  sanctum  of  a  Gcheimjustizrath.  "  Ah  !  " 
he  continued,  "  you  hesitate.  I  know  you  smoke,  but 
you  don't  like  to  say  so.  Wait  a  moment."  So  the  great 
jurist  frisked  into  the  adjoining  room  with  the  alacrity  of 
a  boy  let  loose  from  school,  and  returned,  presenting  a 
box  of  unimpeachable  Havanas.  "  There,"  he  exclaimed, 
"now  we  can  talk  up  this  matter  of  yours  at  our 
leisure." 

Under  ordinary  circumstances,  the  offering  of  a  cigar 
means  very  little.  But  when  you  call  upon  a  great  man 
for  the  first  time,  without  any  other  recommendation  than 
*i6 


1 86  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

yourself  and  your  own  story,  and  he  insists  upon  your 
smoking  one  of  his  best  cigars,  you  may  safely  take  for 
granted  that  he  is  kindly  disposed  toward  you. 

My  visit  was  protracted  until  a  late  hour.  The 
Geheimjustizrath  had  a  great  many  questions  to  ask  me, 
but  they  were  about  everything  else  than  jurisprudence. 
He  wished  to  know  what  I  had  seen  of  Switzerland  and 
Germany  ;  what  I  thought  of  the  war  in  my  own  country 
(then  approaching  the  crisis)  ;  how  I  liked  Germany  as 
compared  with  America.  In  fine,  I  passed  a  most 
delightful  evening  in  easy  conversation.  I  was  treated, 
not  as  a  student,  scarcely  even  as  a  very  young  man,  but 
as  a  welcome  guest,  or  as  one  who  had  presented  strong 
letters  of  recommendation.  I  did  not  elicit  any  definite 
expression  of  opinion  as  to  my  chances  of  a  degree.  In 
truth,  that  was  not  what  I  expected.  I  knew  enough  of 
the  ways  of  the  world  to  refrain  from  urging  the  matter 
to  an  immediate  decision,  and  to  be  satisfied,  and  more 
than  satisfied,  with  having  created  a  favorable  impression 
and  excited  the  interest  of  the  most  influential  member 
of  the  Examining  Faculty.  On  my  taking  leave,  the 
Geheimjustizrath  said :  "  Herr  Hart,  you  must  come  and 
see  me  often,  once  a  week.  Come  to  tea,  and  then  we 
can  have  the  entire  evening  to  ourselves.  Just  consider 
that  as  part  of  your  legal  education.  I  must  become  well 
acquainted  with  you."* 

*  It  may  surprise  the  reader  to  learn  that  I  waited  so  long  before  making  the 
acquaintance  of  the  Geheimjustizrath,  and  that  I  heard  none  of  his  lectures. 
The  latter  circumstance  is  easily  accounted  for.  Ribbentropp  read  the  Insti- 
tutes and  Rechttgtschichie  in  the  winter,  and  Pandects  in  the  summer.  My  first 


SPURTING.  187 


On  relating  my  experience  to  Dr.  Maxen,  the  next  day, 
he  said,  in  his  blunt,  off-hand  fashion :  "  Well,  I  think 
you  will  do.  Keep  on  as  you  have  begun." 

I  obeyed  the  Geheimjustizrattis  friendly  injunction  to 
the  letter.  Scarcely  a  week  passed  without  my  dropping 
in  to  tea  in  an  informal  way.  I  always  found  the  same 
hearty,  unaffected  welcome,  and  the  same  animated  flow 
of  conversation.  The  host  was  not  merely  a  profound 
jurist,  but  thoroughly  versed  in  the  classics,  and  in  the 
literature  of  his  own  country,  and  an  amateur  in  art. 
His  collection  of  engravings  was  not  large,  but  it  was 
very  choice.  I  cannot  better  illustrate  his  genial  charac- 
ter and  his  thorough,  unselfish  appreciation  of  the  best 
efforts  of  human  genius  in  every  line,  than  by  narrating 
the  following  incident.  One  evening  the  conversation 
happened  to  turn  upon  Goethe.  I  believe  that  I  intro- 
duced the  subject  by  alluding  to  the  great  number  of 
poets  who  had  begun  their  career  as  students  of  the  law, 
"  Ja>  Ja"  sa-id  the  Geheimjustizrath,  "  Goethe,  das  war 
ein  ganzer  Kerl !  You  know,  of  course,"  he  continued, 
with  a  most  mischievous  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "  you  know, 
of  course,  his  stupendous  lines  in  Faust  on  the  study  of 

summer  as  a  student  of  law  was  passed  at  Berlin,  where  I  heard  the  Institutes 
from  Gneist.  On  returning  to  GSttingen  for  the  winter,  I  was  ready  to  take 
up  the  Pandects,  which  were  read  in  winter  by  Mommsen,  not  by  Ribben- 
tropp.  As  for  the  acquaintance,  it  was  none  the  worse,  but  probably  all  the 
better,  for  the  delay.  Professors  are  not  apt  to  interest  themselves  in  Fuckse. 
It  is  too  much  of  a  bore  to  have  to  deal  with  a  mere  beginner,  one  who  is  not 
yet  out  of  the  rudiments  The  circumstance  that  a  student  may  pass  nearly 
two  semesters  before  making  the  acquaintance,  or  even  recognizing  by  sight, 
the  most  prominent  professor  of  his  own  faculty,  throws  a  strong  side-light  on 
the  character  of  German  university  life. 


1 88  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

law."  I  had  read  the  Faust,  as  already  stated,  very  care- 
fully in  my  second  semester.  But  what  with  Pandects 
and  Erbrecht,  Practica  and  Exegetica  the  muses  had  been 
strictly  banished  from  my  thoughts  for  many  a  month. 
I  had  become  a  stranger  to  everything  that  could  not  be 
demonstrated  logically  from  the  corpus  juris^  and  was 
forced  to  plead  forgetfulness  as  to  the  passage  in  ques- 
tion. "  What,"  exclaimed  my  host,  "  you  don't  mean  to 
say  that  you,  a  studiosus  juris^  have  forgotten  the  very 
best  thing  ever  said  by  mortal  man  on  the  science  of 
law  ?  Really,  I  must  give  it  to  you  on  the  spot.  Take 
it  to  heart."  Thereupon,  assuming  somewhat  the  pose 
of  an  actor  on  the  stage,  but  not  rising  from  his  seat,  he 
declaimed,  from  memory,  in  a  rich,  sonorous  voice,  and 
with  the  most  expressive  emphasis,  the  magnificent  lines : 

Es  erben  sick.  GesetJ  und  Rechte 

Wie  eine  ew'ge  Krankheit  fort, 

Sie  schleppen  von  Geschlecht  sich  zum  Geschlechte, 

Und  riicken  sacht  von  Ort  zu  Ort. 

Vernunft  wird  Unsinn,  Wohlthat  Plage, 

Weh  Dir,  dass  Du  ein  Enkel  bist  I 

Vom  Rechte,  das  bei  uns  geboren  ist, 

Von  Dent—ist  leider  nie  die  Frage  I  * 

*  I  am  unable  either  to  make  a  metrical  rendering  of  the  passage,  or  to  quote 
one.  Bayard  Taylor's  translation  of  the  Faust,  so  admirable  in  the  main, 
breaks  down  signally  in  this  very  passage.  Put  into  tame  prose,  the  lines 
run: 

Our  laws  and  legal  systems  do  transmit  themselves 

Like  an  inherited  disease  ; 

They  drag  themselves  along  from  race  to  race, 

And  softly  crawl  from  land  to  land. 

What  once  was  sense  is  turned  to  nonsense,  the  boon  becomes  a  torment. 

Alas  for  thee,  that  thou'rt  a  grandchild  ! 

The  right  that's  born  with  us, 

Of  that  — good  lack  —  we  never  hear  the  mention. 

The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  speaker  is  Mephistopheles,  who, 
wrapped  in  Faust's  mantle  and  seated  in  his  chair,  proceeds  to  give  the  young 
student  advice  as  to  his  studies,  aud  the  respective  merits  of  the  different 
faculties. 


SPURTING.  189 


"  Now,  just  see  how  the  great  poet  has  hit  the  thing 
off.  What  venom  there  is  in  every  line,  in  every  word  ! 
And  how  the  climax  is  reached  in  the  line  :  Weh  Dir, 
dass  Du  ein  Enkel  bist !  Ha,  ha !  Not  only  has  a  man 
to  bear  the  consequences  of  all  the  foolish  legislation  and 
stupid  decisions  of  his  own  day  and  generation,  but  he 
is  crushed  with  the  accumulated  burden  of  his  father's 
and  his  grandfather's  asininity.  Isn't  it  sublime  ?  Ja,ja, 
der  Goethe,  das  war  ein  verzweifelt  schlauer  Kerl,  er 
wusste,  was  er  sagen  wollte. 

Looking  back  upon  this  phase  of  my  Gottingen  life 
through  the  vista  of  a  decennium,  I  am  impressed  more 
strongly  than  ever  with  its  uniqueness  and  its  appo- 
siteness.  It  was  the  one  bright  side  of  my  then  daily 
round  of  dull  work.  The  sociable  set  of  Americans  of 
the  previous  winter  had  broken  up.  Many  had 
removed  to  other  universities ;  only  a  few  were  left,  and 
a  spell  seemed  to  have  come  over  both  them  and  myself. 
We  met  occasionally,  but  the  old  spirit  of  friendly  inter- 
course was  suppressed  for  the  while  by  more  urgent 
needs.  The  hebdomadal  visits  at  the  GeheimjustizratW s 
were  almost  my  sole  diversion  for  months.  The  relation- 
ship, if  I  may  venture  to  call  so  simple  a  thing  by  so 
ponderous  a  name,  was  something  for  which  an  Americam 
college  can  furnish  no  analogy.  The  nearest  approach 
to  it  is  to  be  found  in  our  schools  of  science.  I  have  no 
personal  knowledge  of  the  Sheffield  Scientific,  but  from 
what  has  been  told  to  me  by  graduates,  I  infer  that  a 
certain  degree  of  freedom  exists  there  between  the 


1 90  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


instructors  and  the  pupils.  Herein  probably  lies  the 
secret  of  success,  of  the  rapid  growth  of  scientific  schools 
as  distinguished  from  colleges.  The  teachers,  at  least 
very  many  of  them,  have  been  trained  under  the  German 
system,  and  have  caught  its  tone.  They  work  more  with 
the  students,  and  seek  to  guide  and  stimulate  them, 
rather  than  to  play  the  pedagogue.  Yet  there  is  this  dif- 
ference, I  believe,  between  the  Sheffield  Scientific,  taken 
even  at  its  most  favorable  estimate,  and  my  Gottingen 
experience.  The  intercourse  between  professor  and  stu- 
dent at  the  Sheffield  Scientific  is,  although  free,  not  what 
can  be  strictly  called  social,  but  is  confined  to  what  the 
Cantabs  and  Oxonians  call  "shop."  This  was  not  the 
case  in  my  tea-drinkings  at  the  Geheimjustizrath's.  The 
conversation  rarely  turned  upon  legal  matters,  and  then 
only  incidentally.  On  one  occasion,  it  is  true,  I  was  sub- 
jected to  an  impromptu  and  rather  humorously  conducted 
examination.  But  the  great  bulk  of  our  conversation 
was  made  up  of  general  matters,  art,  literature,  science, 
and  especially  national  peculiarities.  My  host  never  grew 
weary  of  listening  to  all  that  I  could  tell  him  about  my 
own  country.  He  was  possessed  of  an  insatiable  curi- 
osity to  know  how  Americans  lived  and  fared  ;  what  kind 
of  houses  they  had ;  what  views  they  took  of  life ;  how 
they  passed  their  leisure  hours.  Like  most  educated 
Germans'  who  have  never  traveled  in  America,  he  was 
accurately  posted  on  certain  minor  details  of  American 
life,  but  failed  to  seize  its  essential  spirit,  to  comprehend 
the  broad  sweep  of  its  movement.  The  recklessness  and 


SPURTING.  191 


turbulence,  the  aggressiveness  of  the  American  charac- 
ter, evidently  impressed  him  more  than  its  acuteness  and 
its  capacity  of  quiet  endurance.  I  cannot  flatter  myself 
with  the  belief  that  I  made  a  convert.  From  one  posi-  \ 
tion  the  Geheimjustizrath  was  not  to  be  dislodged.  He 
wound  up  all  our  discussions  with  the  triumphant  asser- 
tion :  "  Yes,  that  is  all  very  well.  You  Americans  do 
great  things,  but  then  you  have  no  Bildung.  You  have 
gebildete  Leute  in  the  larger  cities,  especially  men  who 
have  been  in  Europe  and  profited  by  what  they  have 
seen  and  heard  here.  But  in  the  country  at  large  you 
have  no  Bildung  of  your  own."  The  reader  may  judge 
for  himself  whether  the  assertion  was  well  founded.* 


*  After  revising  the  above  for  the  press,  I  read,  in  the  supplement  to  the 
Universit'dts  Kalender  for  the  summer  semester  of  1874,  the  sad  announce- 
ment :  v.  RIBBENTROPP  ist  am  14  April gestorben.  The  event  was  not  unex- 
pected, the  deceased  having  passed  the  scriptural  term  of  three  score  and  ten. 
Yet  it  must  have  been  sudden,  as  the  body  of  the  Kalender  announced  his 
lectures  for  the  then  approaching  semester.  Von  Ribbentropp's  cherished 
wish  was  gratified  :  he  died  in  the  harness.  His  associates,  who  knew  him  so 
long  and  loved  him  so  well,  though  scarcely  better  than  I  did,  must  write  his 
eulogy.  But  they  will  not  grudge  me  the  minor  consolation  of  laying  upon 
his  tomb  a  chaplet  of  wild  flowers  culled  on  American  soil : 

"  Happy  their  end 

Who  vanish  down  life's  evening  stream 
Placid  as  swans  that  drift  in  dream 

Round  the  next  river-bend  ! 
Happy  long  life,  with  honor  at  the  close  !  " 

Three  of  my  examiners  have  passed  away :  Kraut,  Francke  and  Ribben- 
tropp. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

The  Final  Agony  of  Preparation. 

T>ETWEEN  the  middle  and  the  end  of  the  summer 
•D  semester,  I  made  my  formal  application  to  the  dean 
of  the  legal  faculty  to  be  admitted  to  examination  for  the 
degree  of  Doctor  juris.  The  paper,  or  document,  con- 
sisted of  a  concisely  worded  but  full  statement  of  the 
place  and  time  of  birth,  and  the  schools  and  other  insti- 
tutions that  I  had  attended  in  America,  and  a  more 
detailed  account  of  my  studies  in  Germany.  I  gave  the 
titles' of  all  the  lectures  I  had  heard,  all  the  text-books 
on  law  that  I  had  read  or  was  then  reading,  all  the  prac- 
tical exercises  that  I  had  attended.  Nothing  was  omitted 
that  could  help  in  putting  my  studies  in  the  proper  light. 
This  curriculum  vitae,  as  it  is  styled,  concluded  with  a 
brief  petition.  Accompanying  it  was  my  Anmeldungsbuch, 
duly  signed  and  certified  by  the  professors  with  whom  I 
had  heard. 

The  semester  drew  to  an  end,  but  the  question  whether 
I  should  be  permitted  to  enter  myself  for  the  doctoral 
examination  in  the  fall  was  not  yet  settled.  The  state 
of  affairs  was  briefly  this.  At  Gottingen  —  and  I  pre- 
sume the  same  arrangement  exists  in  the  other  universi- 
ties—  the  conferment  of  degrees  is  in  the  hands  of  a 
limited  number  of  the  regular  faculty  in  each  department. 


THE  FINAL  AGONY  OF  PREPARA  TION.        193 

This  select  body,  called  the  Honoren-faculfdt,  comprised, 
in  the  law  faculty,  five  men :  Kraut  (then  dean),  Rib- 
bentropp,  Francke,  Zachariae,  and  Briegleb.  Ordinarily, 
the  application  for  an  examination  is  granted  as  of  course. 
My  petition,  however,  was  a  special  one,  involving  special 
concessions.  In  the  first  place,  I  had  not  studied  law 
the  ordinary  number  (six)  of  semesters.  In  the  next 
place,  I  desired  to  be  examined  only  in  Roman,  Canon- 
ical, and  Criminal  Law,  with  the  exclusion  of  Practice 
and  German  Law.  The  faculty  of  honors  in  law  at  Got- 
tingen  was  governed  at  that  time  by  strict  principles,  and 
was  not  disposed  to  make  any  concessions  that  looked 
like  lowering  the  standard  of  scholarship.  Ribbentropp, 
I  knew,  was  in  favor  of  granting  my  request,  and  so  was 
the  dean,  Kraut.  With  regard  to  Zachariae,  I  was  not  at 
all  certain.  The  remaining  two,  Briegleb  and  Francke, 
were  set  against  me.  The  latter,  indeed,  told  me  as 
much,  saying  very  frankly  that  he  did  not  believe  that  I 
had  studied  long  enough  and  knew  enough.  No  final 
vote  was  taken  during  the  semester,  I  was  "  kept  on  the 
hooks,"  as  the  saying  goes,  until  I  felt  tempted  to  give  over 
the  effort  altogether  and  return  home  without  further 
delay.  I  made  a  last  visit  upon  the  dean  just  at  the  close 
of  the  semester,  but  did  not  succeed  in  eliciting  a  deci- 
sive answer.  This  was  Friday  or  Saturday.  Monday 
morning,  as  I  was  idling  over  my  books  and  papers  in  a 
rather  listless,  because  hopeless,  frame  of  mind,  I  heard 
a  heavy  tramp  down  the  passage-way  leading  to  my 
room.  The  steps  came  nearer  and  nearer,  there  was  a 
17 


194  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

sharp,  authoritative  knock  at  my  door.  I  answered, 
Herein,  and  one  of  the  university  beadles  entered. 
Touching  his  cap  with  a  half-military  salute,  he  said  : 
"  Empfehlung  von  Herrn  Hofrath  Kraut,  und  er  schickt 
Ihnen  dieses,  Hofrath  Kraut  sends  you  his  compliments, 
and  this"  handing  me  a  slip  of  paper.  On  it  was  writ- 
ten in  curt,  cabbalistic  characters  : 

Cap.  Non  est  vobis  (n)  X  de  sponsal.    (4,  i). 

/.  JDedi  16  D.  de  condict.  causa  dat.  (12,  4). 

Nothing  more.  Not  a  word  of  explanation  ;  not  even 
a  signature.  But  it  was  enough.  I  knew  that  it  was 
the  summons,  the  token  that  my  request  for  examination 
was  granted.  The  paper  contained  the  references  to  two 
passages,  one  from  the  corpus  juris  civilis,  the  other  from 
the  corpus  juris  canonici,  upon  which  passages  I  was  to 
prepare  and  hand  in  elaborate  dissertations.  Should 
these  dissertations  prove  satisfactory,  I  must  be  admitted 
to  the  oral  examination  ;  if  unsatisfactory,  I  was  barred 
from  applying  again  for  a  semester  or  two. 

The  reader  will  easily  appreciate  the  reverent  fondness 
with  which  I  gazed  upon  this  scrap  of  paper,  unintelligi- 
ble save  to  the  initiated.  It  was  the  glad  announcement 
that  I  should  have  at  least  a  trial,  and  not  be  turned  away 
unheard.  Wishing  to  break  the  good  news  to  myself  as 
gently  as  possible,  I  spent  the  rest  of  the  forenoon  over 
the  billiard-table,  and  as  it  never  rains  but  it  pours,  I 
had  an  uncommon  run  of  good  luck,  that  quite  upset  Prof. 

L and  Dr.  S .  The  afternoon  I  passed,  in  part, 

with  Dr.  Maxen,  in  conference  as  to  the  best  way  of 


THE  FINAL  AGONY  OF  PREPARATION,         195 

taking  up  the  dissertations,  and  the  authorities  to  be  con- 
sulted. What  puzzled  me  at  the  time  was  to  account  for 
the  sudden  change  since  Friday.  I  learned  afterward 
that  the  faculty  met  on  Saturday  to  take  a  formal  vote. 
The  voting  stood  two  against  two,  Zachariae  being  absent 
in  the  country.  At  Ribbentropp's  request,  Kraut  wrote 
to  him  and  left  the  decision  in  his  hands.  He  imme- 
diately telegraphed  his  reply  in  my  favor. 

The  time  set  for  handing  in  the  dissertations  was  Octo- 
ber i5th.  But  on  this  point  the  greatest  liberality  is 
shown  to  candidates.  Practically,  they  can  take  all  the 
time  they  wish,  and  even  after  the  day  for  examination 
has  been  fixed,  it  can  be  postponed  for  good  reasons 
shown.  The  faculty  will  not  interfere  unless  they  are 
induced  to  suspect  that  the  candidate  is  trifling.  My  own 
case  is  in  proof.  I  was  not  examined  until  the  2oth  of 
November. 

In  order  to  simplify  matters,  I  decided  to  dispose  of 
the  dissertations  first,  before  subjecting  myself  to  the 
"  cramming  "  process  for  the  oral.  I  spent  an  hour  or 
two  a  day  in  making  ready  for  the  "  cram,"  after  a  pecu- 
liar fashion.  The  reader  who  has  had  the  patience  to 
follow  the  account  of  my  lectures  and  collateral  study 
will  admit  that  the  ground  covered  was  extensive.  In 
notes  alone  there  were  nearly  1,800  closely  written  man- 
uscript pages,  excluding  Schlesinger's  lectures  on  Erb- 
recht.  So  far  as  the  Pandects  were  concerned,  I  saw  that 
any  attempt  at  memorizing  them  in  mass  would  be  use- 
less. The  field  was  too  large,  and  there  were  too  many 


196  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

details.  I  should  have  to  trust  to  a  clear  understanding 
of  definitions  and  general  principles,  and  —  to  luck.  But 
the  other  subjects,  namely,  Criminal  Law,  Erbrecht,  and 
Ecclesiastical  Law,  I  could  and  should  have,  so  far  at 
least  as  concerned  the  lectures  that  I  had  heard  upon 
them,  at  my  tongue's  end.  Accordingly  I  reduced  them 
(250  pages  each)  to  the  smallest  and  most  manageable 
shape,  by  re-writing.  Not  omitting^  a  single  point,  but 
using  all  sorts  of  abbreviations,  catch-words,  and  other 
mnemonic  helps,  I  cut  them  down  to  a  third  or  a  fourth 
of  their  original  bulk.  To  make  sure  of  the  historical 
growth  of  the  Roman  Law,  I  also  abbreviated  the  more 
important  and  difficult  sections  in  Puchta,  such  as  Family 
Rights,  Erbrecht,  Rights  of  Persons,  Procedure.  Working 
regularly  for  an  hour  or  two  a  day,  I  succeeded,  in  four 
or  five  weeks,  in  completing  this  preparation  for  "cram." 
It  was  not  difficult,  and  it  served  as  an  excellent  prelim- 
inary review. 

As  to  the  dissertations,  I  began  with  the  passage  from 
the  corpus  juris  civilis,  as  being  the  more  important  of 
the  two.  The  text  runs  thus  : 

CELSUS  (the  name  of  the  jurist  from  whose  writings 
the  extract  has  been  excerpted).  Dedi  tibi  pecuniam,  ut 
mihi  Stichum  (the  conventional  name  for  a  slave)  dares  ; 
utrum  id  contract  us  genus  pro  portione  enitionis  et  venditionis 
est,  an  nulla  hie  alia  obligatio  est,  quam  ob  rem  dati  re  non 
secuta  ?  In  quod  prodivior  sum  ;  et  ideo,  si  mortuus  est 
Stichus,  repetere  possum,  quod  ideo  tibi  dedi,  ut  mihi  Stichum 
dares. 


THE  FIN  A  L  AGONY  OF  PREP  A  RA  TION.         1 9  7 

The  examiners  had  assigned  to  me  —  whether  in  a  spirit 
of  kindness  or  unkindness,  I  could  not  divine  —  one  of 
the  most  bristling  vexatae  quaestiones  of  the  Roman  Law. 
I  fear  that  I  cannot  make  the  case  itself  intelligible  to 
the  reader,  even  should  he  be  a  proficient  in  the  English 
Common  Law,  much  less  furnish  him  with  all  the  mate- 
rials for  forming  a  proper  judgment.  Roughly  translated, 
for  our  language  is  scarcely  adequate  to  rendering  the 
concise  and  technical  forms  of  law  Latin,  the  passage 
might  read  after  this  fashion  :  "  I  have  given  you  money 
to  the  end  that  you  should  give  me  in  return  your  slave 
Stichus ;  question,  is  this  in  a  part  a  contract  of  sale,  or 
is  it  nothing  but  an  obligation  ob  rem  daft  re  non  secuta  ? 
To  which  latter  opinion  I  am  inclined,  so  far  that  if 
Stichus  has  died  (or  is  dead),  I  can  recover  the  money, 
inasmuch  as  I  gave  it  to  you  that  you  should  give  me 
Stichus  in  return." 

The  sense  of  the  passage  turns  on  the  word  "  give," 
the  Latin  dare.  In  the  Roman  Law,  the  three  words, 
dare,  facere,  praestari,  have  technical  meanings.  Dare 
denotes  the  transfer  of  full  property,  the  dominium  ex  jure 
Quiritium,  as  distinguished  from  mere  putting  in  posses- 
sion. If  the  one  who  transfers  is  not  himself  full  and 
lawful  owner,  or  if  the  forms  prescribed  by  the  old 
Roman  Law  are  not  strictly  observed,  the  transfer  cannot 
be  called,  in  the  Roman  sense  of  the  term,  a  "  giving." 
It  is  only  a  traditio.  Now  the  contract  of  sale,  accord- 
ing to  Roman  notions,  never  aims  at  a  "  giving."  The 
vendor  does  not  promise  to  make  the  vendee  the  owner ; 


198  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

the  vendee  does  not  bargain  for  the  ownership.  The 
cardinal  feature  of  the  Roman  contractus  emtionis  vendi- 
tionis  is  simply  this,  that  the  vendor  agrees  to  put  the 
vendee  in  possession  and  keep  him  in  possession  against 
all  comers,  ut  rem  sibi  habere  liceat.  So  long  as  the  ven- 
dee is  undisturbed  in  his  possession,  he  has  no  right  of 
action  against  the  vendor  on  the  ground  of  defective 
title.  This  Roman  contract  of  sale,  then,  is  at  once 
broader  and  yet  more  limited  in  its  nature  than  that  of 
our  Common  Law,  and  is  governed  by  its  own  peculiar 
rules.  Consequently,  the  jurist  Celsus,  after  looking  at 
the  case  submitted  to  him  for  an  opinion,  says  to  himself: 
"  Can  this  be  a  sale,  when  I  agree  to  '  give '  some  one 
money,  and  he  agrees  to  *  give  '  me  in  turn  his  slave? 
No.  It  belongs  to  an  altogether  different  and  much 
more  strictly  construed  class  of  contracts,  and  the  rules 
applicable  to  an  ordinary  sale  are  not  binding  here." 

The  distinction  is  of  importance.  In  the  Roman  con- 
tractus emtionis,  the  periculum,  i.  e.,  the  risk  of  loss  or 
deterioration  of  the  thing  sold,  passes  from  the  vendor  to 
the  vendee  from  the  moment  that  the  contract  becomes 
perfect.  In  a  contract  of  sale  made  without  conditions, 
this  moment  coincides  with  the  mutual  declaration  of 
agreement  on  the  part  of  vendor  and  vendee.  A  and 
B  agree  to  buy  and  sell  respectively  a  certain  object. 
From  that  moment  the  periculum  rests  with  the  vendee. 
If  the  object  is  lost  without  the  fault  of  the  vendor,  or  if 
it  deteriorates  in  value,  the  vendee  must  bear  the 
damage. 


THE  FINAL  AGONY  OF  PREPARATION.         199 

This  rule  of  the  Roman  contract  of  sale  evidently  does 
not  apply  to  our  case.  Celsus  says  expressly,  that  the 
one  who  has  "  given "  the  money  to  the  end  that 
the  receiver  shall  "  give  "  in  turn  his  slave,  has  a  right  to 
reclaim  the  money  in  case  of  the  slave's  death.  The 
contract  is  not  a  sale,  but  what  the  Roman  jurists  called 
a  contractus  innominatus.  A  contract  of  this  nature  does 
not  become  perfect,  /.  e.,  does  not  furnish  a  ground  of 
action,  with  the  mere  declaration  of  mutual  consent,  but 
only  with  the  fulfillment  on  one  side.  In  other  words,  if 
B  offers  A  one  hundred  dollars  for  a  horse,  and  A 
accepts,  from  that  moment  the  bargain  is  perfect.  But 
if  A  and  B  merely  agree  to  exchange  horses  (another 
form  of  contractus  innominatus},  the  bargain  remains 
imperfect,  and  becomes  perfect  only  when  A  or  B  has 
taken  the  other's  horse,  so  that  the  one  who  has  parted 
with  the  possession  has  a  right  of  action  to  compel  the 
recipient  to  fulfill,  in  turn,  his  share  of  the  agreement. 

Yet,  even  assuming  that  the  contract  in  our  case  is  a 
contractus  innominatus,  as  distinguished  from  a  regulai 
sale,  the  question  still  remains :  Why  does  Celsus  give 
such  a  decision  ?  Is  not  the  transaction,  even  as  such  a 
nameless  contract,  perfect,  in  the  legal  sense  of  the  term  ? 
One  party  has  "  given,"  /.  e.,  has  fulfilled  his  part  of  the 
agreement,  consequently  there  is  no  further  withdrawal. 
Both  parties  must  abide  by  the  result.  If  the  slave  dies, 
the  loss  (periculum)  falls  upon  the  would-be  purchaser, 
not  the  late  owner,  provided  there  has  been  no  neglect 
or  foul  play.  The  difficulty  of  explaining  the  decision 


200  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

rendered  by  Celsus  is  augmented  by  the  circumstance 
that  the  corpus  juris  contains  two  other  decisions,  which 
are  apparently  in  direct  opposition  to  Celsus,  namely: 
1.  5  §  i  D.  de  praescr.  verbis  (19,  5). 

PAULUS  (another  jurist).  "  Si  scyphos  tibi  dedi,  ut 
Stichum  mihi  dares^  periculo  mihi  Stichus  erit,  ac  tu  dun- 
taxat  culpam  praestari  debes,  if  I  have  '  given  '  you  some 
drinking  goblets  to  the  end  that  you  shall  '  give  '  me  in 
exchange  your  slave  Stichus,  then  Stichus  will  be  at  my 
risk,  and  you  will  be  liable  only  for  laches."  The  other 
passage  is :  1.  10  C.  de  cond.  ob  caus.  dat.  (4,  6). 

DIOCL.  ET  MAXIM,  (the  Roman  emperors).  "  Pecuniam 
a  te  datam,  licet  causa  pro  qua  data  est,  non  culpa  accip- 
ientis,  sed  fortuito  casu  non  est  secuta,  minime  repeti  posse 
cerium  est.  Where  money  has  been  *  given  '  for  an  object 
(causa)  which  —  not  through  the  fault  of  the  receiver  of 
the  money,  but  by  pure  chance  —  has  not  been  realized, 
it  is  certain  that  the  money  cannot  be  reclaimed." 

I  have  endeavored  to  state  as  clearly  as  possible  this 
vexed  question,  over  which  the  ablest  intellects  have 
quarreled,  from  the  glossator  Azo  in  the  twelfth  century 
to  authorities  of  the  present  day,  such  as  Wachter  and 
Vangerow.  There  was  no  lack  of  materials,  then,  from 
which  to  construct  an  essay.  The  only  difficulty  was  to 
arrive  at  something  like  a  clear  opinion  amid  the  tangled 
maze  of  argument  and  counter-argument.  I  found  a 
condensed  list  of  works  of  reference  in  Vangerow's  text- 
book on  the  Pandects.  This  was  enough  for  the  start. 
My  first  "  raid  "  upon  the  University  library  brought  in 


THE  FINAL  A  GON  Y  OF  PREPARA  TION.    2 o  I 

about  eight  or  ten  works.  By  glancing  over  these,  I 
found  still  further  references.  In  this  way  I  continued  to 
add  to  my  dissertation-library,  until  it  amounted  to  forty 
or  fifty  volumes,  big  and  little.  What  with  my  own  pri- 
vate library,  not  very  small,  my  quarters  were  overrun 
with  books,  superb  glossated  Leyden  editions  of  the 
corpus  juris,  musty  old  tomes  of  the  Dutch  and  French 
school,  elaborate  German  treatises,  volumes  of  law 
reviews,  and  monographs.  It  seemed  at  one  time  as  if 
I  were  to  be  crushed  under  the  mass  of  jurisprudence. 
I  had  much  ado  to  find  elbow-room.  But  this  was  a 
trifle  in  comparison  with  the  bore  of  going  through  hun- 
dreds of  pages,  only  to  be  no  wiser  than  before.  The 
more  I  read,  the  less  apparently  I  knew.  After  three  or 
four  weeks  of  such  disagreeable  drudgery,  I  reached  one 
conclusion,  satisfactory  to  me  at  least.  No  two  writers 
on  the  subject  held  the  same  opinion.  Consequently, 
where  doctors  disagreed  so  flagrantly,  a  would-be  doctor 
must  have  the  right  to  think  and  write  pretty  much  what 
he  pleased.  If  the  knot  could  not  be  untied,  at  all 
events  it  could  be  cut.  Rejecting  other  works  of  refer- 
ence as  irrelevant  and  confused,  I  settled  upon  two  or 
three,  that  had  the  merit  of  being  clear  and  to  the  point, 
namely,  two  dissertations  by  Wachter  (one  in  the  Civil- 
Archiv,  vol.  xxxiv,  the  other  a  separate  monograph,  with 
the  title,  doctr.  de  cond.  causa  data  c.  n.  s.),  Erxleben's 
elaborate  work  on  the  condictiones,  and  Vangerow's  Pan- 
dects, vol.  Hi,  p.  228-242.  I  then  endeavored  to  con- 
struct a  plausible  theory,  by  patching  together  Erxleben 


202  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

and  Wachter  (who  is  followed  by  Vangerow).  I  assumed 
that  there  was  a  contradiction,  an  antinomy,  between 
Celsus  and  Paulus.  The  former,  who  lived  in  the  times 
of  Domitian,  Nerva,  and  Hadrian,  represented  the  older 
stage  of  the  law,  before  the  theory  of  the  "  nameless  con- 
tracts "  had  been  fully  developed ;  whereas  Paulus,  who 
lived  in  the  times  of  Septimius  Severus  and  Alexander 
(and  with  Paulus,  the  emperors  Diocletian  and  Maxi- 
mus),  looked  upon  such  "  nameless  contracts  "  as  analo- 
gous to  the  regular  ones,  namely,  sale,  hiring,  loan,  and 
the  like.  From  the  point  of  view  of  Celsus,  the  "  name- 
less "  contracts  were  scarcely  contracts  at  all.  There 
remained  one  point  still  unsettled.  Assuming  that  Celsus 
and  Paulus  represented,  then,  successive  stages  in  the 
development  of  the  law,  how  did  it  happen  that  Jus- 
tinian's Commission,  who  were  appointed  to  prepare  a 
digest  of  the  law  actually  in  force  in  the  sixth  century, 
*".  £.,  much  later  still,  could  commit  the  blunder  of  incor- 
porating in  their  work  two  such  conflicting  views.  In 
Justinian's  time  the  old  forms  of  mancipatio  and  in  jure 
cessio  had  disappeared  ;  there  was  no  longer  any  distinc- 
tion between  res  mancipi  and  res  nee  mancipi ;  the  dis- 
tinction between  a  contract  of  sale  and  a  contract  of 
exchange  (with  or  without  transfer  of  full  ownership, 
dominium)  was  reduced  to  a  minimum.  On  this  point  I 
followed  the  interpretation  of  Beloi'us,  Wachter,  and  Van- 
gerow, who  take  the  phrase  si  mortuus  est  Stichus  to 
mean,  if  Stichus  is  dead  at  the  time  the  money  is  received. 
Had  the  phrase  been  intended,  says  Vangerow,  to  state 


THE  FINAL  AGONY  OF  PREPARA  TION.        203 

that  Stichus  died  after  the  money  was  paid,  it  should 
have  been  worded  si  morietur.  According  to  this  inter- 
pretation, the  passage  comes  under  the  general  provis- 
ion of  the  Roman  Law,  that  an  agreement  based  upon 
a  performance  which  is  impossible  at  the  time,  never 
becomes  perfect.  The  only  difference  between  a  con- 
tract of  sale  and  a  contractus  innominatus  is,  that  the 
impossibility  in  the  former  case  must  exist  at  the  time  of 
the  verbal  agreement ;  in  the  latter  case,  at  the  time  when 
one  party  begins  to  perform  his  share. 

Having  thus  taken  my  position,  the  labor  of  mere  com- 
position became  comparatively  easy.  I  wrote  off  the 
dissertation  in  a  few  days,  combatting  hostile  opinions 
as  vigorously  as  possible,  and  fortifying  my  own  state- 
ments with  liberal  quotations  and  references.  The  dis- 
sertation itself  is,  of  course,  on  file  in  the  archives  at 
Gottingen,  where,  I  trust,  it  will  remain  to  accumulate 
the  dust  of  ages  in  undisturbed  repose.  I  have  in  my 
possession  only  the  original  notes  of  study  and  the  rough 
draft.  Judging  from  them,  I  should  say  that  the  dis- 
sertation filled  twenty-five  to  thirty  pages  of  legal  cap. 
It  would  have  been  an  easy  thing  to  double,  or  perhaps 
treble,  its  length.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  examin- 
ers would  prefer  a  succinct,  straightforward  statement  of 
opinion,  something  homogeneous  in  structure,  and  not 
loaded  down  with  superfluous  matter.  The  prime  object 
of  the  dissertation,  I  took  it,  was  to  give  evidence  that 
the  writer  had  been  over  the  entire  ground  and  under- 


204  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

stood  the  question  in  all  its  bearings.     This  view  was  the 
correct  one. 

Doubtless  the  reader  has  been  bored  more  or  less  by 
the  discussion  of  this  notorious  lex  16  D.  "  dedi  tibi  pecu- 
niam"  I  suspect  that  the  above  analysis  will  not  be 
more  than  half  intelligible,  even  to  one  familiar  with  the 
mysteries  of  the  Common  Law.  Were  it  my  object  to 
produce  a  pleasing  personal  narrative  merely,  I  should 
omit  this  part  altogether.  But  as  my  object  is  rather  to 
show  precisely  how  students  in  a  German  university 
work,  and  what  is  expected  of  them,  I  do  not  feel  at 
liberty  to  pass  over  in  silence  any  essential  part  of  my 
university  course.  It  is  well  for  the  reader  to  know  that 
the  faculty,  in  admitting  a  candidate  to  examination, 
will  not  hesitate  to  set  him  very  puzzling  theses.  And  it 
will  also  be  well  to  call  the  reader's  attention,  in  this 
practical  way,  to  one  important  circumstance  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Roman  Law.  I  mean  the  danger,  not  to 
say  the  senselessness,  of  making  random  quotations  from 
the  corpus  juris.  It  is  a  work  like  many  others,  like  the 
Bible  itself,  a  work  long  and  broad  and  deep,  the  product 
of  many  minds  and  many  generations  of  minds,  bristling 
with  difficulties  of  interpretation,  yet  —  to  one  who 
approaches  it  with  due  preparation  —  a  work  from  which 
rare  truth  can  be  extracted ;  but  only  by  one  who  has 
had  due  preparation.  To  the  amateur  civilian,  the  dilet- 
tante in  Roman  Law,  the  corpus  juris  is  a  book  from 
which  he  can  prove  anything,  and  consequently  nothing. 
There  are  many  passages  which  are  penned  in  the  sim- 


THE  FINAL  AGONY  OF  PREPARA  TION.         205 

plest  Latin,  and  are  intelligible  to  every  reader  ;  but  they 
are  interspersed  with  others  that  demand  the  widest  col- 
lateral research.  One  who  has  not  studied  the  Roman 
Law  as  a  system  can  never  be  sure  what  sort  of  a  passage 
he  may  have  before  him.  No  less  a  person  than  Black- 
stone  himself  is  a  signal  instance  of  such  blundering. 
The  learned  English  judge  is  fond  of  ventilating  here 
and  there  his  would-be  knowledge  of  the  Roman  Law. 
Coming  to  the  study  of  the  Commentaries  fresh  from 
my  training  in  Gottingen,  I  was  struck,  nay  more,  thun- 
derstruck, with  Blackstone's  ignorance.  It  is  scarcely 
going  too  far  to  say  that  Blackstone,  in  a  majority  of  the 
cases  where  he  ventures  upon  some  statement  of  Roman 
Law,  is  not  only  wrong,  but  grossly  wrong ;  so  far  out  of 
the  way,  indeed,  that  one  wonders  how  he  could  possibly 
have  fallen  into  such  a  predicament.  On  the  other  hand, 
Chancellor  Kent,  who  studied  the  Roman  Law  carefully 
and  systematically,  is  a  safe  guide  to  follow.  Knowing 
that  law  as  an  expert,  not  as  an  amateur,  he  has  suc- 
ceeded in  applying  its  principles  to  the  elucidation  of 
our  English  system  with  a  sureness  of  insight  and  a 
breadth  of  vision  that  may  possibly  be  rivaled  by  some 
future  disciple,  but  will  never  be  surpassed. 

The  full  text  of  the  citation  from  the  corpus  juris 
canonici  runs  as  follows  : 

"  Non  est  a  vobis  (sicut  arUtramur)  incognitum  qualiter 

Rex  Anglorum  pro  discordia,  quae  inter  ipsum  et  filios  suos 

est  suborta,  uxores  eorum  detineat.     Nos  itaque  attendentes 

justum  et  honestum  esse  ut  viri  suaspetant  uxores ',  mandamus^ 

18 


206  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

quatenus  eundem  Regcm  ad  eas  restituendas  solicietQ  moneatis : 
et  si  juxta  commonitionem  vestram  filiis  suis  uxores  suas 
intra  certum  terminum  non  restituerit^  ex  tune  in  quacumque 
provinciarum  detinentur  vel  trans feruntur  donee  ibi  fuerint, 
nulla  divina  officia  (praeter  JBaptismum  parvulorum  et 
poenitentias  morientium)  celebretis  nee permittatis  aliquatenus 
celebrari" 

Alex.  III.,  papa,  archiepiscopis,  episcopis  et  aliis  praelatis 
per  Angliam  constitutis. 

After  reading  the  passage  carefully,  to  make  sure  of 
getting  the  exact  meaning,  I  could  not  restrain  an  ejacu- 
lation of  amazement.  The  papal  message  was  clear 
enough,  but,  in  the  name  of  Alexander  and  all  the  other 
Popes,  what  was  I  to  do  with  it  ?  It  furnished  no 
materials  for  an  argument,  it  did  not  conflict  with  any 
known  principle  of  the  mediaeval  church.  How,  then, 
was  it  to  be  expanded  into  the  dimensions  of  a  respect- 
able essay  ?  Or  was  the  passage,  apparently  so  simple, 
in  reality  a  snare,  a  trap  laid  for  me  by  the  examiners  ?  I 
studied  it  again  and  again,  but  could  discover  nothing 
that  forced  me  to  alter  my  first  impression. 

In  this  quandary,  I  submitted  the  passage  to  Dr. 
Maxen.  He  laughed  over  it  after  his  usual  fashion,  and 
said :  "  That's  easy  enough.  There  is  no  trap  in  the 
passage  The  examiners  have  only  given  you  an  oppor- 
tunity to  display  your  historical  knowledge.  Consult 
Gonsalez  Tellez  and  the  text-books  on  the  Interdict,  and 
don't  spare  padding"  Relieved  by  this  assurance,  I 
began  work  in  earnest.  The  great  Spanish  commentator, 


THE  FINAL  AGONY  OF  PREPARA  TION.        207 

Gonsalez  Tellez,  to  whom  students  of  the  corpus  juris 
canonici  can  never  be  sufficiently  grateful  for  his  life-long 
labors,  had  treated  the  passage,  I  discovered,  at  length, 
in  his  fourth  volume.  From  him  I  gathered  the  facts  of 
the  case.  Henry  II.,  that  most  amiable  of  English  rulers, 
always  in  hot  water  either  with  the  clergy  or  the  nobility 
or  his  own  family,  had  quarreled  with  his  three  sons, 
Henry,  Richard  and  Godfrey.  Thereupon  the  sons  had 
set  up  the  standard  of  revolt  in  the  then  English  province 
of  Aquitaine.  To  punish  them  and  compel  them  to  lay 
down  their  arms,  the  King  seized  and  held  their  wives  as 
hostages.  The  husbands  appealed  to  the  papal  chair 
and  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  decree  in  question, 
wherein  the  Pope,  by  virtue  of  his  authority  as  God's 
vicegerent  upon  earth,  enjoins  the  King  to  desist  from 
his  crime  of  attempting  to  put  asunder  what  God  has 
plainly  joined.  The  archbishops  (of  York  and  Canter- 
bury), the  bishops,  and  the  other  clergy  of  England,  are 
to  induce  the  King,  if  possible,  to  restore  the  wives.  But 
if  their  admonitions  are  of  no  avail,  they  are  to  pronounce 
over  every  province  in  which  the  wives  are  detained,  or 
to  which  they  may  be  removed,  the  great  Interdict. 

The  first  point  in  my  dissertation  was  to  discuss  in  full 
the  Roman  Catholic  theory  of  punishment.  The  means 
of  discipline  are  divided  into  two  general  classes :  the 
poenitentiae  (more  correctly,  exerdtia  poenitentiae^  penance), 
and  the  poenae.  The  former,  poenitentiae^  are  imposed 
upon  the  sinner  who  is  already  awakened  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  his  guilt  and  seeks  voluntarily  to  be  reconciled 


208  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

$ 
with  the  church.     The  poenae,  on  the  other  hand,  apply  to 

the  still  impenitent.  They  are  subdivided  into  censurae  and 
poenae  proper.  The  censurae  serve  as  deterrents,  to  recall 
the  sinner  from  his  evil  course,  to  compel  him,  as  it  were, 
to  reconciliation.  Hence  they  are  also  called  poenae 
medicinales.  The  poenae  proper  are  true  punishments, 
inflicted  to  avenge  the  violation  of  holy  law,  and  are 
called  poenae  vindicativae.  They  consist  in  imprisonment, 
flagellation,  fines,  degradation  from  the  priestly  office,  and 
the  like. 

The  censurae  or  poenae  medicinales  are  of  two  kinds  : 
the  excommunication  and  the  interdict.  The  excommu- 
nication may  be  either  minor  or  major.  The  minor 
excommunication  excludes  the  sinner  from  participating 
in  the  sacraments  of  the  church.  The  major  cuts  him 
off  from  all  church  exercises ;  he  cannot  be  buried  in 
consecrated  ground  or  with  the  ordinary  ceremonies; 
his  name  cannot  be  mentioned  in  the  prayers  of  the 
church,  he  cannot  appear  in  court,  either  in  his  own 
behalf  or  in  behalf  of  others,  and  he  may  be  declared  an 
outlaw.  He  can  hold  no  intercourse  with  the  faithful ; 
in  the  words  of  the  mediaeval  verse, 

Os,  orare,  vale,  communio,  mensa  negatur. 

The  interdict  is  a  general  suspension  of  church  exer- 
cises, and  not  merely  an  exclusion  of  one  or  more  persons 
from  participating  in  them.  It  may  be  local,  or  personal, 
or  deambulatory,  as  in  the  present  case.  The  interdict, 
again,  may  be  general  or  special,  according  as  a  whole 
district  or  only  a  single  church  is  affected  by  it. 


THE  FINAL  AGONY  OF  PREPARA  TION.         209 

The  excommunication  strikes  at  the  offender  alone; 
the  interdict,  on  the  other  hand,  involves  both  the  guilty 
and  the  innocent  in  the  same  punishment.  The  history 
of  the  excommunication  dates  from  the  earliest  times  of 
the  Christian  church,  its  institution  being  based  upon  the 
utterance  contained  in  Matt.  xvi.  17,  in  connection  with 
i  Cor.  v.  5,  and  other  passages.  In  excluding  the  sinner 
from  communion  with  the  faithful,  the  church  (Catholic 
and  Protestant  as  well)  simply  exercises  a  right  common 
to  all  societies,  namely,  that  of  rejecting  an  unworthy 
member.  With  the  interdict,  the  case  is  different.  So 
long  as  the  church  was  missionary  and  militant,  engaged 
in  the  work  of  converting  pagan  Europe,  the  interdict 
was  a  weapon  likely  to  do  more  harm  than  good. 
Although  a  few  obscure  instances  are  mentioned  in  the 
earlier  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  the  interdict,  as  a 
system  of  terrorism,  was  not  fairly  developed  until  the 
Middle  Ages,  that  is  to  say,  until  the  church  had  become 
the  ecclesia  triumphant  and  aspired  to  rule  not  only  things 
spiritual  but  things  temporal.  An  excommunicated  sove- 
reign could  easily  find  ways  and  means  of  evading  the 
penalties  of  the  sentence  and  compelling  the  obedience 
of  his  subjects.  But  where  the  interdict  was  pronounced 
over  his  land,  suspending  all,  or  almost  all,  the  public  and 
private  exercises  of  divine  worship,  the  pressure  brought 
to  bear  upon  high  and  low  was  too  great  to  be  resisted. 
Every  one  felt  a  keen  and  direct  interest  in  bringing 
about  a  reconciliation  between  the  offending  ruler  and 
the  offended  church.  The  interdict  thus  became  the 
*I8 


210  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

chosen  weapon  of  the  mediaeval  Popes,  the  thunderbolt 
by  which  an  Innocent  or  a  Gregory  struck  down  rebel- 
lious princes.  Hurter,  in  his  Life  of  Innocent  III.,  has  a 
long  and  eloquent  passage  descriptive  of  the  operation 
of  the  interdict  suspended  by  that  Pope  over  France 
because  of  the  refusal  of  Philip  to  separate  from  his  mis- 
tress, the  celebrated  Agnes  of  Meran.  I  give  a  few 
extracts,  in  paraphrase  rather  than  in  literal  translation. 
"  Life,  in  all  its  higher  phases,  appeared  dissevered 
from  the  church.  The  radiance  of  consecration  was 
dimmed,  earthly  existence  without  communication  with 
the  heavenly.  True,  the  new-born  child  was  still  received 
into  the  covenant  of  God,  but  only  furtively,  as  it  were ; 
the  day  that  else  called  forth  joy  and  exultation  from  the 
parents'  breast,  now  passed  in  mournful  silence.  The 
bond  of  matrimony  was  entered  into,  not  before  the  altar, 
but  over  the  grave,  as  by  those  worthy  of  death.  The 
guilt-laden  conscience  was  not  lightened  by  confession 
and  absolution,  the  weary  were  not  cheered  by  the 
preaching  of  the  word,  the  hungry  not  fed  with  the  body 
of  the  Lord.  Only  from  the  steps  of  the  church,  and 
only  on  Sunday,  was  the  priest  allowed  to  exhort  the 
people  to  repentance.  Only  in  secret,  with  the  faint 
hope  of  God's  mercy,  did  the  dying  man  receive  the 
viaticum.  But  the  last  unction,  consecrated  ground, 
even  funeral  rites  were  denied  him.  Friend  could  not 
bury  friend,  children  could  not  cover  their  parents  with 
so  much  as  a  handful  of  earth,  the  corpse  of  the  noble- 
man found  no  more  favor  than  the  corpse  of  the  beggar." 


THE  FINAL  A  GON  Y  OF  PREPARA  TION.         2 1 1 

After  thus  discussing  the  nature  of  church  censure  and 
its  efficacy  in  the  Middle  Ages,  I  proceeded  to  show  that 
according  to  the  Roman  Law  (notwithstanding  itspatria 
potestas],  the  English,  and  the  Canon  Law,  the  son  had  a 
right  to  the  undisturbed  possession  of  his  wife,  even  as 
against  his  own  father.  The  act  of  Henry  II.,  in  seizing 
a  wife  as  hostage  for  the  misdeeds  of  the  husband,  conced- 
ing that  the  revolt  was  a  misdeed,  clearly  contravened 
every  known  system  of  law  and  justice.*  It  was  simply 
an  act  of  arbitrary  power,  against  which,  coming  as  it  did 
from  the  supreme  ruler  of  England,  the  aggrieved  hus- 
bands had  no  redress.  They  appealed  to  the  Pope,  as 
the  judge  of  kings,  to  interfere  in  behalf  of  human  right 
and  divine  law.  Assuming  that  there  was  no  complicity 
on  the  part  of  the  wives,  I  took  the  broad  ground  that,  in 
accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  times,  the  stretch  of 
papal  power  was  in  this  instance,  if  ever,  fully  justified. 
There  was  scarcely  any  other  way  of  reaching  a  sovereign 
like  Henry  II. 

One  point,  which  interested  me  more  than  all  the 
others,  I  had  to  leave  undecided.  It  was  this,  whether 
the  threatened  interdict  was  actually  carried  out,  or 
remained  a  mere  brutum  fulmen.  The  Gottingen  library 
is  very  rich  in  works  of  history ;  I  ransacked  the  English 
department  diligently,  but  did  not  succeed  in  finding  an 
allusion  either  to  the  Papal  threat  or  to  any  influence 
that  it  might  have  had  upon  the  peaceable  adjustment  of 

*  Especially  the  English  law,  which,  in  some  instances,  even  exonerates  the 
wife  as  an  accomplice,  on  the  presumption  that  she  has  acted  under  marital 
compulsion. 


212  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

the  domestic  quarrels  of  Henry  II.  In  such  researches, 
success  is  largely  dependent  upon  the  amount  of  time  at 
one's  disposal.  After  hunting  over  fifty  or  a  hundred 
ponderous  old  folios  in  English,  French  and  German, 
grim  with  dust  and  cobwebs,  and  boring  the  amiable 
assistant  librarian,  I  dropped  the  attempt.  Should  any 
of  my  readers  feel  disposed  to  take  it  up,  I  wish  him  all 
success. 

The  dissertations  thus  disposed  of,  I  suffered  them  to 
lie  idle  a  while  with  a  view  to  making  verbal  emendations 
from  time  to  time,  before  submitting  them  to  the  dean, 
and  turned  my  energies  to  the  distasteful  but  indispensa- 
ble labor  of  "  cramming. "  The  recollection  of  the  days 
and  weeks  spent  in  this  monotonous  process  makes  me 
feel,  even  at  the  present  day,  unspeakably  discomforted. 
What  should  have  been  spread  over  four  or  five  months, 
and  taken  in  homoeopathic  doses,  had  to  be  devoured  in 
a  few  weeks.  If  there  be  one  thing  more  than  another  to 
which  I  am  opposed,  on  general  principles,  it  is  "  cram- 
ming "  for  an  examination.  Not  only  is  the  brain  worn 
out  by  the  effort  to  master  mere  words  and  forms,  but  the 
chances  are  that  when  the  object  is  attained,  the  exami- 
nation over,  one's  dearly  bought  knowledge  will  slip  away 
nearly  as  fast  as  it  came.  The  task  before  me  was  not  to 
learn  any  thing  new,  to  develop  new  principles,  to  follow 
out  some  line  of  independent  investigation,  but  to  drum 
into  my  head  definitions,  names,  dates,  subdivisions  of 
topics,  exceptions,  so  as  to  be  able  to  recite  them 
glibly.  This,  of  course,  was  not  to  be  all  the  examina- 


THE  FINAL  A  GON  Y  OF  PREPARA  TION.         2  1  3 

tion.  But  it  would  be  undoubtedly  a  prominent  part. 
Had  I  been  able  to  prolong  my  stay  until  spring,  I  should 
have  made  things  easier,  by  combining  memorizing  with 
collateral  reading.  As  it  was,  I  had  to  make  the  best  of 
my  limited  time.  The  examiners,  I  knew,  expected  me 
to  be  thoroughly  informed  on  certain  subjects.  Inasmuch 
as  my  examination  would  not  cover  the  entire  range  of 
the  law,  but  only  so  much  as  came  under  Roman  and 
ecclesiastical  jurisprudence,  it  behooved  me  to  work  up 
that  portion  all  the  more  thoroughly,  and  thus  prove  to 
the  examiners  that  they  had  not  acted  indiscreetly  in 
giving  me  a  trial.  Being  favored,  I  was  under  especial 
obligations.  So  I  sacrificed  my  general  principles  to  the 
needs  of  the  situation,  and  "  crammed  "  to  the  best  of  my 
ability. 

As  has  been  already  mentioned,  I  had  reduced  my 
notes  and  portions  of  certain  text-books  to  a  compact 
and  manageable  shape.  Allowing  ten  hours  a  day  for 
four  weeks,  I  drew  up  an  elaborate  schedule  of  study.  So 
many  hours  or  portions  of  hours  every  day  were  assigned 
to  this  topic,  so  many  to  that.  I  learned  everything  by 
heart,  by  sheer  dint  of  repetition.  Not  being  endowed 
by  nature  with  a  good  memory,  I  had  to  proceed  slowly 
and  very  systematically,  catechizing  myself  at  every  step. 
The  three  main  subjects  were  Erbrecht,  Criminal  Law, 
and  Ecclesiastical  Law.  To  the  first  I  gave  two  hours  and 
a  half  every  day,  to  the  two  others  two  hours  each.  The 
remaining  three  hours  and  a  half  were  split  up  in  miscel- 
laneous cram.  The  process  was  anything  but  an  intel- 


214  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

lectual  one.  It  consisted  in  going  over  the  memoranda 
again  and  again  until  I  had  made  sure  of  every  point. 

At  the  end  of  three  or  four  weeks,  I  was  surprised  to 
see  how  much  progress  I  had  made,  and  how  the  memory 
had  trained  itself  to  retain  names  and  dates  and  divis- 
ions. No  one  can  realize  the  extent  to  which  the 
memory  can  be  trained,  until  he  has  tried  for  himself  the 
experiment  of  memorizing  an  extensive  and  complicated 
subject.  At  first,  the  attempt  seems  hopeless.  Names 
and  rules  slip  in  by  the  eyes  and  out  again  by  the  ears. 
What  was  learned  one  day,  is  forgotten  the  next.  But 
the  reader,  if  he  does  not  know  it  already  through  his 
own  experience,  may  take  my  word  for  it,  that  there  will 
come  a  time  when  the  knowledge  sticks.  Minor  points 
may  need  occasional  revision,  but  the  solid  frame-work 
of  the  subject  will  acquire  a  firm  foothold  in  the  memory. 
The  subject  itself  has  passed  into  the  student's  mind,  it 
forms  part  and  parcel  of  his  very  being,  and  cannot  be 
dislodged,  not  even  at  will.  What  has  been  "  crammed  " 
into  the  memory,  haunts  the  crammer  like  Banquo's 
ghost,  thrusting  up  its  hateful  head  on  the  most  unseason- 
able occasions.  At  this  stage  of  the  work,  it  is  a  prob- 
lem to  decide  whether  the  student  has  mastered  the 
subject,  or  the  subject  the  student. 

By  the  middle  of  October,  but  for  one  unfortunate 
circumstance,  I  might  have  announced  myself  ready  for 
the  examination.  The  labor  was  substantially  over. 
I  had  learned  by  heart  all  that  had  come  to  me 
in  the  shape  of  lectures  on  Erbrecht,  Criminal  Law, 


THE  FINAL  A  GON  Y  OF  PREPARA  TION.        2 1 5 

Ecclesiastical  Law,  the  History  of  Roman  Juris- 
prudence, and  was  prepared  to  venture  on  the  gen- 
eral principles  of  the  Pandects.  Francke's  lectures,  in 
particular,  on  Erbrecht,  I  had  mastered  so  thoroughly  as 
to  be  able  to  recite  them  from  beginning  to  end,  back- 
wards or  forwards,  or  to  start  in  the  middle  and  go  both 
ways  at  once.  It  gave  me  a  certain  amount  of  pleasure 
to  imagine  that  I  was  thus  getting  the  better  of  one  who 
had  expressly  declared  his  disbelief  in  my  attainments. 
There  was  no  ground  for  anticipating  unfair  treatment  in 
the  examination  from  any  one,  but  there  was  ground  for 
believing  that  from  Francke  I  should  get  justice  untem- 
pered  with  mercy.  Accordingly,  the  uppermost  thought 
in  my  mind  for  months  was  this :  With  the  other  exam- 
iners I  may  make  a  slip  here  and  there,  but  with  him  I 
must  and  will  answer  every  question.  In  this  there  was 
no  feeling  of  personal  animosity.  On  the  contrary,  I  had 
the  greatest  respect  for  Francke  as  a  man,  and  regarded 
his  lectures  as  wonderfully  clear  and  to  the  point.  The 
oftener  I  reviewed  them,  the  greater  became  my  admira- 
tion for  the  intellect  that  had  planned  mem.  Were  I  a 
jurist  in  Germany,  I  should  cherish  my  notes  of  those 
lectures  as  a  vade  mecum  for  the  most  subtle  and  knotty 
branch  of  all  jurisprudence.  Besides,  a  sense  of  justice 
forced  me  to  admit  that,  taken  at  his  point  of  view,  he 
might  be  right.  I  was  not,  in  strictness,  entitled  to  an 
examination ;  he  might  have  reason  to  suppose  that  one 
who  had  studied  less  than  the  usual  time  must  be  unpre- 
pared. I  felt  no  resentment,  therefore,  but  I  was  piqued 


2i6  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

and  put  on  my  mettle.  In  an  American  college  there  is 
friction  enough,  as  every  one  knows,  between  professor 
and  student,  but  it  arises  from  personal  dislike,  and 
assumes  a  very  petty  shape.  As  our  examinations  are 
usually  conducted  in  writing,  each  member  of  the  class 
having  the  same  questions,  it  would  not  be  easy  for  the 
examiner,  even  if  so  disposed,  to  treat  any  one  student 
unfairly.  To  do  so,  he  would  have  to  close  his  eyes 
willfully  and  heinously  to  the  written  paper  before  him. 
But  in  an  oral  examination,  which  lasts  several  hours, 
and  in  which  the  examiner  has  a  free  choice  of  questions, 
this  element  of  personal  antagonism  may  become  a 
serious  matter.  The  candidate  who  has  reason  to  sus- 
pect that  one  or  more  examiners  are  opposed  to  him, 
must  prepare  himself  with  the  utmost  care.  In  law 
there  is  a  certain  latitude  of  opinion,  but  not  nearly  so 
much  as  in  medicine,  for  instance,  or  philosophy,  or  his- 
tory. It  happens  not  unfrequently  that  the  candidate  in 
one  of  these  branches,  holding  views  differing  from  those 
of  the  examiner,  will  work  up  some  controverted  topic 
most  elaborately,  and  turn  the  examination  into  a  sort 
of  word-duel  between  himself  and  the  examiner.  Nor 
does  the  examiner  always  come  out  from  such  an  encoun- 
ter the  victor.  An  old-fogy  professor  —  such  men  exist 
even  in  Germany  —  may  be  ridden  completely  out  of  the 
field  by  some  half-developed  Wolff,  or  Heyne.  My 
ambition  did  not  aspire  to  such  a  feat.  All  that  I  could 
aim  at  was  to  know  thoroughly  what  every  student  should 
know,  and  answer  legitimate  questions  promptly. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Examination. 

THE  unfortunate  circumstance  that  prevented  my  en- 
tering the  examination  by  the  middle  of  October  was 
one  that  has  frustrated  many  a  well  laid  scheme  of  "  mice 
and  men."  I  broke  down  in  health.  For  six  months  I 
had  worked  under  what  engineers  would  call  a  pressure 
of  fifty  pounds  to  the  square  inch.  All  through  the 
enervating  weather  of  spring  and  the  depressing  heat  of 
the  dog-days,  I  had  slaved  over  books  and  notes,  eight 
and  ten  and  twelve  hours  a  day,  without  a  rest,  without 
even  a  break  in  the  dull  monotony,  and  now  nature 
resented  the  outrage.  What  injured  me  was  not  so  much 
the  amount  of  work  performed,  but  the  feverish  haste 
with  which  it  was  driven,  and  the  want  of  variety.  I 
have  studied  quite  as  assiduously  on  more  than  one  occa- 
sion since,  without  feeling  the  worse  for  it.  But  then  I 
was  not  cramming  for  examination  ! 

The  week  before  the  opening  of  the  winter  semester, 
I  began  to  be  conscious  of  a  total  want  of  energy,  and 
an  inability  to  keep  my  mind  fixed  on  one  subject  for 
longer  than  half  an  hour.  I  could  neither  sleep  by  night 
nor  rest  by  day,  and  was  nervous  to  the  last  degree.  It 
became  evident  to  me  that  this  was  no  fit  state  of  mind 
19 


218  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

or  body  in  which  to  encounter  a  severe  examination. 
The  nervousness  assumed  such  a  violent  shape  that  I 
suspected  an  attack  of  chills  and  fever,  or  possibly  some- 
thing worse.  The  physician,  however,  assured  me  that 
it  was  only  a  temporary  prostration,  and  could  be  cured 
by  rest  and  change  of  air,  but  by  nothing  else.  To 
attempt  to  go  on  with  my  work  would  be  downright  mad- 
ness. 

Fortunately  no  day  had  yet  been  set  for  the  examina- 
tion, neither  were  there  many  candidates  at  that  time. 
Both  Ribbentropp  and  Kraut,  whom  I  consulted  more  as 
friends  than  as  professors,  advised  me  by  all  means  to 
drop  everything  and  take  a  vacation.  "  It  will  make  very 
little,  if  any,  difference  to  us,"  they  said,  "  whether  you 
are  examined  in  October  or  in  November.  In  fact,  the 
delay  will  rather  suit  us,  because  it  will  give  us  more  time 
for  working  off  prior  applications.  Hand  in  your  disser- 
tations, which  we  can  then  read  at  our  leisure,  take  a 
holiday  of  a  fortnight  or  more,  and  when  you  are  back, 
inform  us  of  your  return.  The  rest  can  be  easily 
arranged." 

Accordingly  I  put  the  finishing  touches  to  the  disser- 
tations, returned  two  or  three  basketfuls  of  books  to 
the  library,  and  turned  my  back  upon  Gbttingen  and 
the  corpus  juris.  Having  numerous  friends  at  Heidel- 
berg, I  made  that  my  first  object-point.  It  mattered 
nothing  to  me  where  I  went,  so  long  as  I  could  enjoy 
myself.  No  sooner  had  I  taken  my  seat  in  the  night 
express,  than  a  heavy  load  seemed  to  roll  off  my  mind. 


EXAMINA  TION.  2 1 9 


Even  the  eight  or  nine  hours  of  jolting  and  two  changes 
of  cars  were  welcome.  Anything  was  better  than  books. 
The  Heidelberg  friends  received  me  warmly.  As  it  was 
only  the  beginning  of  the  semester,  they  were  not  pressed 
for  time.  One  or  two  Kneipen  were  arranged  in  honor 
of  the  guest,  who  had  nothing  to  do  but  wander  about 
from  room  to  room,  talking  over  old  times,  or  to  ramble 
over  the  castle  and  up  to  the  Kaiserstuhl.  One  excursion, 
in  particular,  I  shall  never  forget.  On  a  glorious  October 
day  four  of  us  set  out  in  an  open  coach  for  the  famous 
gardens  of  Schwetzingen.  The  road,  after  leaving  the 
outskirts  of  Heidelberg,  follows  a  straight  line  for  five 
miles.  It  serves,  I  believe,  as  the  base-line  for  the 
trigonometrical  survey  of  this  part  of  the  Grand  Duchy. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances,  a  straight  line  cannot  be 
regarded  as  picturesque.  But  when  it  traverses  rich 
fields  filled  with  fruit-trees  that  bend  under  their 
load  of  golden  fruit,  so  that  the  air  is  heavy  with  the 
fragrance,  and  you  yourself,  a  prisoner  snatching  a  brief 
respite  from  drudgery  and  confinement,  are  rolling  along 
it  in  company  with  three  jovial  friends,  you  will  be  apt  to 
take  the  good  things  of  nature  as  they  come,  and  not  find 
fault  with  trifles. 

The  arch-ducal  gardens  of  Schwetzingen,  begun  about 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  by  the  Prince  Elec- 
toral Charles  Louis,  are  on  a  large  scale.  They  cover 
1 86  Morgen  of  land.  (A  Morgen  is  about  an  acre.)  The 
inner,  or  older,  portion  is  laid  out  in  the  French  style,  in 
broad  alleys,  crossing  each  other  at  right  angles,  and 


220  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


lined  with  limes  and  orange  trees  in  large  wooden  hold- 
ers. At  the  crossings  of  the  alleys  are  statues  and  stat- 
uettes, figures  of  nymphs,  naiads,  dragons,  and  other 
quaint  garden  devices  of  the  order  Louis  Quatorze.  To 
my  taste  there  is  nothing  so  disagreeable  of  its  kind  as  a 
French  garden  on  a  small  scale.  It  suggests  the  attempt 
to  squeeze  nature  into  a  straight-jacket  tricked  out  with 
finery.  But  on  a  generous  scale,  where  the  alleys  are 
thirty  and  forty  feet  broad  and  hundreds  of  feet  in 
length,  the  limes  well  grown  and  meeting  at  the  tops,  the 
vista  closing  in  every  direction  with  bubbling  fountains, 
the  French  garden,  more  correctly  called  a  park,  is  a 
consummate  work  of  art.  It  shows  off  nature  to  advan- 
tage. The  more  so  if,  as  is  the  case  at  Schwetzingen,  the 
French  part  is  surrounded  and  relieved  by  the  charming 
irregularity  of  the  so  called  English  garden.  The  con- 
trast of  the  two  styles  was  to  me  something  inexpressibly 
fascinating.  In  the  English  part,  which  is  of  much  later 
date,  the  trees  are  chiefly  horsechestnuts.  On  the  par- 
ticular day  of  which  I  write,  the  ground  was  covered  with 
chestnuts  and  burrs.  As  we  rambled  through  the  wind- 
ing alleys,  we  gathered  chestnuts  by  the  hatful  and 
pelted  one  another  in  mimic  warfare.  What  with  this 
amusement,  playing  leap-frog,  and  getting  up  foot-races 
and  jumping-matches,  we  behaved  more  like  American 
Freshmen  than  dignified  Heidelberg  and  Gottingen 
Burschen.  There  is  not  a  little  to  see  at  Schwetzingen. 
The  castle  is  usually  open  to  visitors  ;  then  there  is  the 
Mosque,  the  Temple  of  Minerva,  the  Temple  of  Mercury, 


EX  AM  IN  A  TION.  2  2 1 


the  colossal  statues,  the  "  Rhine  "  and  the  "  Danube." 
But  these  did  not  interest  me  much.  I  cared  only  for 
the  open  air,  the  fresh  turf,  the  fountains  and  miniature 
lakes,  the  grand  old  forest  trees.  I  forgot  Pandects  and 
dissertations  utterly,  and  did  not  even  mourn  the  loss. 

After  a  week  thus  spent  in  and  around  Heidelberg,  I 
induced  one  of  my  friends  to  join  me  in  a  flying  trip  to 
Strassburg.  We  spent  two  or  three  days  in  exploring  the 
wonderful  cathedral,  which  is  to  me  the  most  interesting 
in  Europe.  Standing  almost  under  the  great  Rose- 
window,  and  letting  the  eye  sweep  down  the  aisle,  one 
can  trace,  step  by  step,  the  development  of  the  ogival,  so 
called  Gothic,  style  of  architecture.  The  crypt,  choir 
and  part  of  the  transept  are  still  Basilican  ;  the  rest  of 
the  transept  is  early  Gothic,  the  nave  is  Gothic  in  its 
prime,  the  part  around  the  Rose  is  Gothic  on  the  decline. 
The  tomb  of  Marshal  Saxe,  in  the  Church  of  St.  Thomas, 
is  a  charming  allegorical  group,  in  marble,  life-size,  com- 
memorating the  exploits  of  the  great  general  of  Louis 
XV.  The  marshal  is  descending  to  the  tomb,  conducted 
by  France,  a  young  woman  in  tears.  Stalwart  nude 
figures,  crouching  in  fetters,  symbolize  the  conquered 
nations. 

Besides  the  objects  of  art  in  Strassburg,  I  became 
much  interested  in  studying  the  mixed  character  of  the 
population.  I  never  could  make  out  quite  to  my  own  sat- 
isfaction whether  the  person  with  whom  I  chanced  to  be 
speaking  was  French  or  German.  Everybody  seemed  to 
use  both  languages  with  equal  fluency  and  equal  inele- 


222  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

gance.  By  the  third  day,  I  began  to  speak  polyglot 
"myself,  commencing  a  sentence  in  French  and  ending  in 
German.  The  tone  of  the  place  was  French.  The 
hotels,  cafes,  public  gardens  were  conducted  after  the 
French  fashion.  But  it  seemed  to  me,  even  then,  that 
while  the  surface  polish  came  from  France,  the  substance 
was  German.  Now  that  Alsace  is  "  restored,"  as  the 
Germans  say,  the  tendency  among  English  and  Ameri- 
cans is  to  look  upon  the  annexation  as  a  deed  of  violence 
that  cries  aloud  to  heaven,  and  to  join  the  French  in 
bewailing  the  hard  lot  of  the  "  reconstructed  "  Alsatians. 
For  my  part,  I  certainly  do  not  blame  the  French  for 
taking  the  loss  of  a  valuable  province  to  heart.  But 
whether  they  will  ever  recover  it,  whether,  indeed,  they 
ought  to  recover  it,  is  another  matter.  Historic  rights 
and  wrongs  aside,  one  thing  is  very  certain.  There  is  an 
underlying  element  in  Strassburg  and  throughout  Alsace 
that  is  essentially  German,  and  can  be  incorporated  in 
time  into  the  German  body  politic.  Given  twenty  years 
of  undisturbed  possession,  with  German  schools,  a  Ger- 
man university,  a  German  military  service,  the  Hohenzol- 
lern  dynasty  may  abide  the  French  onslaught  with  the 
utmost  composure.  I  hazard  the  prediction  that,  should 
war  be  renewed,  the  Alsatians  will  be  found  among  the 
hardest  fighters  on  the  German  side.* 

*  Goethe's  account  of  his  student-life  in  Strassburg  and  his  flirtation  at  Ses- 
enheim  (given  in  Wahrheit  und  Dichtunf*^  throws  a  strong  light  upon  the 
thoroughly  German  character  of  the  Alsatians  and  their  mode  of  life  at  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  only  after  the  Revolution  had  done  its 
work  of  demolition  and  reconstruction  that  we  observe  the  French  putting 
forward  any  claims  to  having  Gallicized  their  Rhine  provinces. 


EXAMINA  TION.  223 


The  fortnight  of  vacation  passed  in  this  way  only  too 
rapidly.  I  bade  my  Heidelberg  friends  a  last  farewell 
and  returned  to  Gottingen  by  the  end  of  the  month, 
determined  to  "  go  in  "  this  time,  and  put  an  end  to  the 
uncertainty.  At  all  events  I  was  physically  ready  for  the 
examination.  Health  and  spirits  were  never  better.  My 
dissertations  had  been  read  and  approved.  The  day  of 
examination  was  fixed  for  the  third  Saturday  in  Novem- 
ber, at  four  in  the  afternoon.  The  delay  seemed  almost 
too  long,  so  great  was  my  anxiety  to  reach  a  decision. 
However,  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  wait  and  work. 
Invigorated  in  mind  and  body,  I  took  up  once  more  the 
books  and  "  cram  "  that  had  lain  neglected  on  their 
shelves.  There  came  over  me  one  of  those  spells  which 
the  poets  call  inspiration.  I  worked  as  I  had  never  done 
before.  Everything  was  easy  to  me.  Definitions,  dates, 
names,  intricate  subdivisions  were  like  child's  play.  So  far 
from  having  forgotten  anything,  it  seemed  actually  as  if 
memory  and  judgment  had  continued  to  operate,  uncon- 
sciously, all  the  while  that  I  had  been  idling  in  Heidel- 
berg and  Strassburg.  In  the  first  two  weeks  of  November, 
I  reviewed  the  entire  summer's  work  and  made  it 
thoroughly  my  own.  The  ten  hours'  reading  a  day  was  a 
pastime  rather  than  a  toil. 

It  was  the  Monday  before  the  all-important  Saturday. 
Wishing  to  go  into  the  examination  fresh,  yet  unwil- 
ling to  fritter  away  the  time,  I  devised  the  following  plan 
for  letting  myself  down  gradually  to  do-nothingism.  On 
that  day  I  limited  myself  to  eight  hours,  on  Tuesday  to 


224  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

six,  on  Wednesday  to  four,  on  Thursday  to  two.  Friday 
was  spent  in  sorting  papers,  answering  letters,  and  dis- 
posing of  odds  and  ends  of  business.  A  long  walk  in  the 
afternoon  and  an  inordinately  long  night's  rest  completed 
my  preparation. 

The  morning  of  Saturday  was  dull  and  threatened  rain. 
I  lounged  about  the  Museum,  reading  the  papers  and 
playing  a  few  games  of  billiards.  The  excitement  of  the 
game  was  just  enough  to  banish  from  my  mind  for  the 
while  all  unpleasant  ideas  of  examination.  After  dinner 
the  clouds  lifted  for  an  hour  or  two  and  the  sun  came 
out  warm.  The  opportunity  for  a  turn  around  the  wall 
was  too  good  to  be  neglected. 

I  had  been  careful  to  keep  the  time  of  the  approaching 
examination  a  secret.  Nobody,  as  I  supposed,  but 
myself,  the  faculty,  and  the  beadle  knew  of  the  precise 
day  and  hour.  I  had  no  desire  to  be  congratulated  too 
soon,  only  to  be  commiserated  too  late.  Before  three 
o'clock  I  was  back  in  my  room,  dressing  for  the  encoun- 
ter. Perhaps  the  reader  will  smile  at  the  idea  of  a 
student  dressing  for  examination.  But  then  Germany 
and  America  differ  on  this  point,  as  they  do  on  so  many 
others.  A  university  examination  for  degrees  is  a  matter 
of  ceremony.  The  professors  come  in  full  dress,  and 
expect  the  candidate  to  do  the  same.  Swallow-tail  coat, 
silk  hat,  white  cravat  and  white  kid  gloves  are  de  rigueur. 
A  sponge-bath, —  which  is  not  a  part  of  any  German  official 
programme, —  fortified  me  for  wearing  the  swallow-tail 
with  an  equanimity  that  was  as  gratifying  as  it  was  surpris- 


EX  A  MINA  TION.  22$ 


ing.  Buttoning  my  overcoat  up  to  the  chin,  so  as  to  con- 
ceal my  white  cravat  from  prying  glances,  I  slipped  out 
of  the  house  as  quietly  as  possible  and  strolled  down  the 
Wende  street  toward  the  residence  of  the  dean,  Hofrath 
Kraut,  looking  in  at  the  shop  windows  for  new  books. 
By  this  time  the  sun  had  disappeared,  the  brief  winter 
twilight  of  North  Germany  had  also  disappeared,  and  the 
street  was  almost  as  dark  as  night.  It  was  not  very  diffi- 
cult, then,  to  avoid  friends  and  acquaintances. 

While  waiting  in  the  ante-room  of  the  Hofrath 's  apart- 
ments, my  equanimity  was  upset  by  one  of  the  minor 
trials  of  life.  White  kid  gloves  are  made  in  Germany  to 
tear.  One  of  mine,  the  left-hand,  tore  across  the  palm 
from  side  to  side,  when  I  attempted  to  pull  it  on.  Neces- 
sity, it  is  well  known,  is  the  mother  of  invention.  I  used 
my  left  hand  for  holding  my  hat !  The  only  drawback 
to  the  expedient  was  that  it  compelled  me  to  retain  the 
same  position  of  the  hand  for  three  hours,  no  small  item 
in  an  examination. 

At  four  o'clock,  punctually,  the  door  of  the  Hofrath 's 
study  opened,  and  the  beadle  ushered  me  into  the  august 
presence  of  the  examiners.  Like  myself,  they  were  in 
grand  toilet,  seated  in  a  sort  of  semi-circle  facing  the 
door,  and  looking  quite  unconcerned.  An  unoccupied 
chair  stood  in  the  center  of  the  circle.  Off  in  one  corner 
was  a  small  table ;  on  it  were  two  or  three  bottles  of  wine 
and  a  basket  of  cake.  The  festive  aspect  of  the  room 
suggested  a  reception  rather  than  an  examination.  After 
I  had  bowed  to  the  company  in  general  and  shaken 


226  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

hands  with  them  individually,  the  dean  motioned  to  me 
be  seated. 

The  examination  was  opened  without  preamble  or 
ceremony,  by  the  head  of  the  faculty,  the  dean.  Hofrath 
Kraut's  specialty  was  German  Law,  but  as  that  did  not 
form  a  part  of  my  examination,  he  took  up  Ecclesiastical 
Law.  He  detained  me  not  quite  half  an  hour,  putting 
his  questions  deliberately  but  not  slowly.  They  were  not 
difficult  in  themselves,  although  requiring  precision  in 
the  answering.  Not  one  bore  any  reference  to  church 
discipline.  The  reader  may  take  for  granted  that,  should 
he  venture  into  an  oral  examination  before  a  German 
faculty,  he  will  not  be  questioned  directly  upon  the  sub- 
ject contained  in  his  dissertation,  but  rather  upon  some- 
thing having  a  distant  relation  to  it.  A  friend  of  mine, 
who  took  his  degree  at  Leipsic,  wrote  his  dissertation 
upon  Homeric  Greek.  Thinking  that  he  would  probably 
be  called  upon  to  translate  difficult  passages  in  the 
examination,  he  crammed  the  entire  Iliad  and  Odyssey. 
It  was  a  case  of  love's  labor  lost ;  he  was  asked  to  trans- 
late from  the  dramatists.  My  examination  in  Ecclesias- 
tical Law  covered  the  entire  field  of  matrimony  and 
matrimonial  rights  and  obligations,  the  mode  of  contract- 
ing marriage  according  to  the  early  Roman  Law,  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  the  Empire,  according  to  the  practice 
of  the  early  Church,  according  to  the  council  of  Trent, 
according  to  the  Code  Napoleon.  I  was  called  upon  to 
state  the  Catholic  theory  of  marriage  as  a  sacrament,  and 
the  obstacles  to  marriage  between  certain  parties,  the 


EX  A  MINA  TION.  227 


impedimentum  aetatis,  erroris,  vis  ac  metus,  cognationis^  and 
the  like,  the  papal  dispensations,  divorce  a  vinculo,  a 
mensa  et  thoro.  The  next  topic  was  the  nature  of  the 
priesthood  in  the  Catholic  church  and  in  the  Protestant, 
the  right  of  patronage  (advowsons),  and  the  composition 
of  the  corpus  juris  canonici  clausum.  The  chief  difficulty 
that  I  labored  under  arose  from  the  circumstance  that 
Hofrath  Kraut  was  slightly  deaf.  This  obliged  me  to 
raise  my  voice  more  than  was  pleasant.  The  questions, 
I  have  said,  were  not  hard,  that  is  to  say,  they  did  not 
demand  original  thinking.  But  they  were  precisely  worded 
and  called  for  exact  knowledge.  A  candidate  who  had 
not  studied  faithfully  Herrmann's  lectures  or  their  equiv- 
alent, could  not  have  answered  more  than  one  in  three, 
possibly  four.  I  missed  a  name  or  date  now  and  then, 
but  in  the  main  was  satisfied.  When  the  Hofrath  had 
finished,  I  felt  that  if  the  rest  were  no  worse,  I  should 
pass  with  a  margin. 

The  next  examiner  was  Ribbentropp.  His  questions 
were  much  sharper  than  I  had  anticipated  from  one  who 
had  proved  himself  such  a  good  friend.  Perhaps  the 
Geheimjustizrath  had  confidence  in  his  protege's  claims 
and  wished  to  demonstrate  to  some  of  his  colleagues  that 
his  partiality  was  not  without  foundation.  Of  course  I 
did  not  get  a  single  question  on  the  contractus  innominatus 
or  the  condictiones.  But  I  was  questioned  most  unmerci- 
fully on  the  general  theory  of  contracts,  upon  suspensive 
and  abrogating  conditions,  upon  times  and  terms,  and 
especially  upon  the  contract  of  sale.  Had  I  been  writing 


228  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

a  monograph  on  the  subject,  I  could  not  have  been  called 
upon  for  more  exact  and  detailed  statements.  Suddenly 
the  topic  was  changed,  and  we  were  in  the  midst  of  the 
rights  of  real  property.  I  had  to  give  all  that  I  knew  or 
was  supposed  to  know  of  the  ways  of  acquiring  and  los- 
ing real  property,  from  the  laws  of  the  XII  Tables  down 
to  the  codification  of  Justinian.  This  led  to  the  servi- 
tudes (easements)  of  the  Roman  Law,  their  classification, 
their  nature  in  general  and  in  particular,  and  their  opera- 
tion. The  questions  came  so  fast  that  I  had  barely  time 
to  answer  them.  Perceiving  that  it  was  the  examiner's 
intention  to  cover  as  much  ground  as  possible,  I  deemed 
it  expedient  to  assist  him.  Accordingly  I  wasted  no  time 
by  asking  for  the  repetition  of  a  question ;  if  unable  to 
hit  upon  the  answer  at  once,  I  said  simply :  do  not  know, 
cannot  say.  It  became  evident  that  this  mode  of  pro- 
cedure was  well  received.  Nothing  can  be  more  exaspe- 
rating to  an  examiner  than  the  suspicion  that  the  exami- 
nee is  "  beating  about  the  bush,"  or  "  fighting  against 
time."  In  an  oral  examination,  if  you  do  not  know  a 
thing  at  once,  the  chances  are  ten  to  one  that  you  will 
not  know  it  at.all,  and  the  more  you  talk,  the  deeper  you 
sink  in  the  mire.  Having,  in  my  turn,  examined  scores 
of  young  men,  I  can  say  frankly  that  to  the  examiner  a 
prompt,  honest  "  Don't  know,"  is  worth  a  dozen  "  Can't 
understand  the  question."  The  trouble  is  not  with  the 
question,  but  with  the  answer. 

It  was  quarter  past  five.     The  Pandects  had  "  blown  " 
me  a  trifle.     The  dean,  probably  suspecting  as  much, 


EXAMINATION.  229 


said,  with  a  good-natured  smile  :  "  We  will  now  make  a 
little  pause."  Going  to  the  table,  he  filled  the  glasses 
with  wine.  The  professors  helped  themselves  liberally, 
and  enjoyed  the  refreshments  with  a  gusto  that  seemed 
to  me  rather  cold-blooded.  In  such  cases,  it  makes 
all  the  difference  whether  one  examines,  or  is  exam- 
ined. Feeling  that  under  the  circumstances  a  drop 
might  be  a  bottle  too  much,  I  declined  the  proffered 
wine,  and  contented  myself  with  cake  and  water.  At  all 
events,  the  relaxation  was  very  acceptable. 

The  pause  did  not  last  longer  than  five  minutes.  The 
third  examiner  was  Zachariae,  in  Criminal  Law.  His 
questions,  like  those  of  Kraut,  were  not  difficult,  and 
were  put  even  more  deliberately.  They  were  mainly 
upon  the  general  theory  of  the  right  of  punishment,  the 
criticism  of  the  Roman  system,  the  views  of  Beccaria, 
Rossi,  Bentham,  Abegg,  Feuerbach,  and  Mittermaier, 
the  doctrine  of  punishment  as  a  divine  ordinance,  the 
lex  talionis,  the  theory  of  expiation,  prevention,  deter- 
ment, reformation,  self-preservation  on  the  part  of 
society.  The  nature  and  kinds  of  punishment,  the  death 
penalty,  imprisonment,  fines,  the  several  penitentiary  sys- 
tems in  force  in  Europe  and  the  United  States,  the 
definition  of  criminal  intent  and  criminal  negligence 
completed  the  examination.  At  one  question  I  sup- 
pressed with  difficulty  a  smile.  "  Can  you  give  me  the 
precise  meaning  of  crimen,  as  it  is  used  in  the  corpus 
juris  ?  "  Ans.  "  The  word  denotes  the  Strafsache  (the 
indictment  and  trial,  procedure),  rather  than  the  criminal 

20 


230  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

act  itself.  This  latter  is  designated  by  the  Roman  jurists 
by  the  terms  delictum,  maleficium,  scelus,  and  the  like." 
In  themselves  considered,  there  was  nothing  about  either 
question  or  answer  to  provoke  risibility.  The  joke  lay 
in  the  circumstance  that  I  knew  long  before  the  examina- 
tion that  this  particular  question  would  be  given.  It  had 
occurred  in  Dr.  Maxen's  Repetitorium,  and  the  doctor 
warned  us  at  the  time,  saying :  "  If  any  of  you  are  exam- 
ined by  Zachariae,  be  sure  that  you  know  what  crimen  is. 
It  is  one  of  his  hobbies." 

So  far,  so  well.  But  the  two  remaining  examiners 
were  the  ones  most  to  be  dreaded.  Francke  opened  the 
interesting  field  of  Erbrecht.  It  was  evident  from  his 
manner,  and  from  the  first  few  questions,  that  he  meant 
to  be  thorough.  Forewarned,  however,  is  forearmed. 
During  the  forty-five  or  fifty  minutes  that  he  kept  me  on 
the  "  anxious-bench,"  I  was  sustained  by  one,  and  only 
one,  reflection.  It  was  this  :  Treat  me  fairly  ;  give  me 
such  questions  as  ought  to  be  given ;  examine  me  only  on 
things  that  you  yourself  have  explained,  and  I  ask  no 
favor.  You  shall  have  an  answer  to  every  question. 
And  such  was  the  case.  The  examination  was  very  long 
and  exhaustive.  Each  question  came  as  quick  and 
searching  as  though  the  examiner  himself  were  in  doubt 
and  sought  for  information.  The  following  specimen 
may  suffice. 

Q.  What  were  the  formal  requirements  of  a  private* 


*  Private •,  as  distinguished    from    a   will   entered    as  a  public  act  in  the 
record  of  a  court. 


EXAMINA  TION.  2  3 1 


will,  according  to  the  law  of  the  times  of  Justinian,  as 
concerned  the  witnesses  ? 

A.  They  must  be  seven  in  number. 

Q.  Who  are  incapable  of  acting  as  witnesses  ? 

A.  Women,  the  deaf,  dumb,  furiosi,  impuberes,  prodigi 
(legally  declared  spendthrifts),  the  blind,  the  filius 
familias  of  the  testator,  the  one  instituted  as  heres,  and 
whoever  is  united  with  him  in  patria  potestas. 

Q.  No  matter  about  the  others.  What  do  you  mean 
by  the  rogatio  testis  ? 

A.  The  witness  must  be  asked  to  serve  as  such,  that  is, 
he  must  know  that  the  act  performed  before  him  is  the 
making  of  a  will  and  not  some  other  transaction. 

Q.  Continue  your  enumeration  of  the  requirements. 

A.  The  witnesses  must  be  in  the  presence  of  the 
testator,  must  be  situated  so  as  to  be  able  to  see  and 
hear  all  that  is  going  on. 

Q.  What  is  the  unitas  actus  et  temporis  ? 

A.  It  means  that  the  act  shall  not  be  interrupted. 

Q.  When  does  it  end  ?     Any  time  specified  ? 

A.  Not  until  the  testament  is  completed  according  to 
the  full  intent  of  the  testator. 

Q.  What  do  you  mean  by  a  suus  heres  ? 

A.  Whoever,  as  son  or  grandson  (through  the  son),  was 
in  the  potestas  of  the  will-maker,  the  deceased,  and  became 
at  his  death  sui  juris. 

Q.  What  were  the  claims  of  a  suus  heres  ? 

A.  He  must  be  either  instituted  heir  or  expressly  dis- 
inherited. 


232  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Q.  To  what  particular  share  of  the  estate  was  he 
entitled  ? 

A.  To  none.  The  testator  could  leave  him  as  much  or 
as  little  as  he  saw  fit,  only  it  must  be  something. 

Q.  Could  any  conditions  be  imposed  upon  a  suus  heres  ? 

A.  No,  unless  coupled  with  the  alternative  of  express 
disinheritance. 

Q.  Who  can  make  a  will  ? 

A.  In  general,  any  one. 

Q.  Who  cannot  make  a  will  ? 

A.  Whoever  can  have  no  property  of  his  own. 

Q.  Whom  do  you  mean  by  that  ? 

A.  A  son,  for  instance,  in  the  potestas  of  his  father. 

Q.  Is  every  one  sui  juris  entitled  to  make  a  will  ? 

A.  No.     Impuberes,prodigi,  deaf-mutes  (born  such). 

Q.  Can  a  person  simply  deaf  or  simply  mute  make  a 
will  ? 

A.  Yes,  according  to  Justinian,  but  only  in  writing. 

Q.  And  deaf-mutes  not  born  such  ? 

A.  The  testament  must  be  altogether  in  the  testator's 
own  handwriting. 

Fifty  minutes  of  such  questioning  are  enough  to  shake 
any  candidate  who  is  not  rooted  and  grounded  in  the 
faith.  The  close  of  Francke's  examination  was  rather 
peculiar. 

Q.  What  are  the  liabilities  of  one  who  has  entered 
into  the  possession  of  an  inheritance  (hereditas)  in  good 
faith  (bona  fide),  supposing  that  he  was  the  lawful  heir 
(heres],  and  is  afterward  sued  by  the  real  heir  5 


EXAMINA  TION.  233 


A.  He  is  liable  only  for  so  much  of  the  inheritance 
as  actually  remains  in  his  possession,  in  id  quod  locupletior 
factus  est. 

Q.  He  is  not  liable,  then,  for  what  he  has  spent  or 
wasted  ? 

A.  No ;  not  if  he  has  acted  in  good  faith  that  he  was 
the  heir. 

Q.  Your  answer  is  correct.  Let  me  give  you  a  practical 
case.  A  is  in  possession  of  an  estate,  supposing  himself 
to  be  the  sole  heir.  After  several  years,  B  comes  forward 
and  proves  that  he,  B,  is  joint  heir.  In  the  meanwhile, 
A,  leading  a  rather  spendthrift  life,  has  wasted  half  the 
estate.  Can  B  say  to  A  :  You  have  spent  your  half  of 
the  estate  ;  hand  over  to  me  now  what  is  left,  for  that  is 
my  half? 

I  hesitated.  The  problem  was  wholly  novel  to  me.  I 
had  certainly  never  met  any  thing  resembling  it,  either  in 
my  books  or  lectures.  Observing  my  hesitation,  Francke 
said,  rather  sharply  :  "  You  understand  me  ?  "  I  replied  : 
"  Yes,  I  understand.  B  cannot  claim  this  of  A.  If  the 
two  are  joint  heirs,  they  are  joint  heirs  at  all  times.  If 
part  has  been  wasted  in  good  faith,  both  bear  the  loss  in 
equal  shares.  What  is  left  must  be  divided  between  the 
two." 

Breaking  in  so  abruptly  as  to  leave  me  scarcely  time 
for  finishing  the  sentence,  he  said,  fixing  his  eyes  full 
upon  me  :  "  Did  you  ever  read  any  passage  bearing  upon 
this  point  ?  "  I  replied  :  "  No  ;  I  answered  on  general 
principles."  "  Humph,  humph,"  he  said,  "  there  is  a  pas- 


234  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

sage  in  the  corpus  juris,  from  Ulpian.  You  are  right. 
That  will  do,  sir."* 

The  fifth  and  last  examiner,  Briegleb,  had  things  pretty 
much  his  own  way.  I  had  gone  into  the  examination  know- 
ing that  Procedure  was  the  weak  side  of  my  preparation, 
and  had  supposed  that  I  should  be  spared  any  questions 
touching  upon  the  special  developments  of  the  Roman 
law  in  Germany.  Had  the  examiner  confined  himself  to 
the  Formular-process  (procedure  by  formulae)  of  the 
ante-Justinian  law,  he  would  have  elicited  more  satisfac- 
tory answers.  Instead  of  doing  this,  he  dwelt,  apparently 
with  great  delight,  upon  the  theory  of  appeals  according 
to  the  practice  of  the  mediaeval  courts  of  the  church,  a 
matter  about  as  familiar  to  me  as  were  the  laws  of  Manu. 
Fortunately  Francke  had  consumed  so  much  time  with 
Erbrecht,  that  Briegleb  had  only  twenty  minutes  left  in 
which  to  punish  me.  I  sat  it  out  with  as  much  grace  as 
the  circumstances  would  permit.  After  the  excitement 
of  Francke's  examination  was  over,  a  decided  reaction  set 
in.  I  felt  completely  worn  out,  and  answered  almost 
listlessly,  Don't  know,  to  two  questions  in  three. 

About  five  or  ten  minutes  past  seven,  Briegleb  closed 
his  examination.  I  withdrew  to  the  ante-room,  to  await 
the  decision.  Over  three  hours,  I  muttered ;  they  have 
not  shown  me  much  mercy.  The  suspense  was  almost 
intolerable.  The  ante-room  was  as  much  too  cold  as 


*  The  words  heres,  hereditas,  and  bona  fide  possessor  are  technical  terms  of 
the  Roman  Law,  for  which  we  have  no  equivalents  in  English.  The  passage 
meant  is,  I  believe,  1.  25,  §  15  D.  de  hered.  pet.  (v.  3.) 


EXAMINATION.  235 


the  other  room  had  been  too  warm.  What  with  anxiety, 
the  consciousness  of  having  done  so  poorly  at  the  close, 
and  the  general  reaction,  I  was  overpowered  by  a  nervous 
chill.  The  time  of  waiting  was  only  five  minutes,  yet  it 
dragged  as  though  it  had  been  as  many  hours.  The 
beadle  opened  the  door,  and  I  was  ushered  once  more 
into  the  presence  of  the  judges,  to  listen  to  the  sentence. 
They  were  all  standing.  The  dean  stepped  forward  and 
said,  in  a  measured  accent,  as  if  to  make  sure  of  each 
word :  "  Candidate,  in  consideration  of  the  dissertations 
submitted  in  writing,  and  of  the  oral  examination 
just  concluded,  we,  the  faculty  of  degrees  of  the  Georgia 
Augusta^  have  resolved  to  confer  upon  you  the  second 
degree,  raised,  vera  cum  laude.  Permit  me  to  congratulate 
you."  With  that,  he  extended  his  hand. 

I  took  it  mechanically.  Had  he  told  me  that  I  had 
drawn  the  great  prize  in  the  Prussian  lottery,  my  astonish- 
ment could  not  have  been  greater.  The  second  degree 
raised  ?  Was  there  not  some  mistake  about  it  ?  The 
utmost  that  I  had  hoped  for  was  to  pass.  But  to  take 
two  degrees  above  pass,  sounded  incredible.  That  the 
reader  may  understand  the  point,  I  should  state  that  the 
legal  faculty  of  Gottingen  distinguished  three  grades. 
The  lowest  was  entitled  simply  examine  superato.  The 
one  above  it  was  entitled  examine  cum  laude  superato. 
The  next  in  order  was  the  vera  cum  laude.  There  was 
still  another,  nominally  the  first,  called  imigniter,  or  post 
insignia  exhibita  specim  na.  It  was  given,  however,  very 
seldom,  and  only  to  such  candidates  as  displayed  extra- 


236  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

ordinary  knowledge,  both  in  their  examinations  and  in 
their  dissertations.  The  last  instance  of  its  conferment 
had  occurred  eight  or  ten  years  before.  Even  had  my 
work  been  twice  as  good  as  it  was,  it  would  not  have 
entitled  me  to  an  insigniter,  for  the  reason  that  it  did  not 
cover  the  entire  field  of  jurisprudence.  Practically,  the 
examiners  had  conferred  upon  me  the  highest  degree  in 
their  power. 

Ribbentropp,  who  certainly  showed  his  delight  more 
than  I  did  mine,  patted  me  most  paternally  on  the 
shoulder  and  whispered :  "  You  did  yourself  credit. 
Come  and  see  me  to-morrow  morning,  at  eleven.  We 
will  talk  it  up  then."  There  was  nothing  more  to  do.  I 
shook  each  examiner's  hand  in  turn,  muttered  a  few 
words  of  thanks,  and  fled.  It  seemed  as  though  my  head 
would  burst  with  the  pressure,  unless  I  got  a  breath  of 
fresh  air.  In  a  second  I  was  out  in  the  street,  inhaling 
the  cool  November  breeze  and  paying  no  heed  to  the 
scattering  rain-drops.  I  hurried  home,  to  shuffle  off  my 
ball-room  costume  and  have  some  supper.  Not  even  the 
successful  candidate  can  live  on  air  after  such  a  trial  of 
his  powers  of  endurance.  I  felt  famished. 

But  the  greatest  surprise  was  still  to  come.  I  should 
mention,  by  the  way,  that  I  was  boarding  once  more  with 
Frau  H — ,  the  landlady  in  whose  house  I  had  passed  the 
first  two  semesters.  All  my  friends  and  acquaintances 
knew,  of  course,  that  I  was  a  candidate  for  degrees.  But 
no  one  had  been  informed  of  the  day  fixed  for  the  exami- 
nation. That,  I  supposed,  was  a  profound  secret.  Frau 


EX  A  MI N A  TION.  237 


H's  parlor  faced  the  head  of  the  stairs.  Let  the  reader 
imagine  my  bewilderment.  As  I  stepped  briskly  and 
softly  up  the  stairway,  in  the  hope  of  turning  down  the 
side-passage  and  slipping  into  my  room  unobserved,  the 
door  opened  and  I  was  confronted  with  a  blaze  of  light. 
The  parlor  was  illuminated  !  All  the  candles  and  lamps 
in  the  house  had  been  pressed  into  the  service.  The 
good  Frau  herself,  her  face  beaming  with  delight,  stood 
in  the  doorway.  No  sooner  had  I  come  fairly  within 
reach,  than  she  darted  forward  and  seized  both  hands  — 
"  O,  I  congratulate  you,  I  congratulate  you,  Herr 
DOCTOR.  Come  in ! "  Overcome  by  this  unexpected 
welcome,  I  suffered  myself  to  be  dragged  rather  than 
led  into  the  room.  On  the  center-table  was  a  huge 
cake.  The  icing  bore  the  inscription  of  my  name,  the 
day,  and  the  year.  Around  the  rim  of  the  cake  was  a 
wreath  of  laurel-leaves.  The  family  were  all  there  in 
honor  of  the  occasion.  Still  tongue-tied  with  emotion,  I 
thanked  her  as  warmly  as  I  could.  "  But,"  said  I,  "  how 
did  you  know  that  this  was  the  day  ?  "  "  Never  mind,  that 
is  my  secret."*  "  Well  then,  if  you  decline  to  tell  me  that, 
perhaps  you  will  inform  me  how  you  knew  beforehand 
that  I  would  pass.  Suppose  I  had  failed,  what  would  you 
have  done  then  with  your  cake  and  your  laurel-wreath  ?  " 
"  Ach  Himmel !  As  if  any  one  could  sit  behind  his  books 
so  long,  only  to  fall  through  at  last.  No,  no.  We  knew 
better.  Besides,  Dr.  Maxen  was  sure  that  you  would 
pass."  "  So  the  Doctor  has  been  telling  tales,  has  he  ? 

*  I  suspected  the  Frau  of  bribing  the  beadle. 


238  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Well,  I  can  forgive  him  this  time.     But  just  consider, 

Frau  H ,  that  I  haven't   had   anything  to  eat  for 

more  than  six  hours,  and  examination  makes  one  fright- 
fully hungry."  So  the  cake  was  carefully  put  away,  to  be 
cut  in  due  form  the  next  day,  at  dinner,  and  a  bountiful 
supper  brought  on,  that  made  me  feel  once  more  quite 
at  peace  with  the  world. 

The  reader  must  suffer  me  to  say  a  few  additional 
words  with  reference  to  the  examination  as  a  whole.  It 
impressed  me  as  being  throughout  eminently  fair.  The 
questions  were  worded  carefully,  and  although  searching, 
and  intended  to  be  searching,  they  did  not  aim  at  "  trip- 
ping "  the  candidate.  The  difficulty  of  the  examination 
did  not  lie  in  any  one  question,  but  in  the  immense 
extent  of  the  ground  covered.  An  occasional  slip  was 
not  taken  into  account.  What  the  examiners  evidently 
sought  to  ascertain  was  this :  Has  the  candidate  before 
us  mastered  the  subject  so  as  to  be  able  to  follow  our 
interrogatories  in  every  line  that  we  may  happen  to 
strike  ?  Does  he  possess  a  clear  survey  (  Uebersicht )  over 
the  domain  of  jurisprudence,  an  accurate  knowledge  of 
general  principles  and  the  ability  to  apply  them  correctly  ? 
Does  he  hold  what  he  possesses  as  his  own,  or  is  he  liable 
to  be  disconcerted  by  any  sudden  approach  ?  The 
examiners,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  displayed  a  high  degree 
of  skill  in  changing  the  topic  as  soon  as  they  found  that 
the  candidate  had  his  answers  ready.  In  this  way  they 
succeeded  in  running  over  the  entire  ground.  It  was 
evident  that  they  knew  how  to  examine. 


EXAMINA  TION.  239 


A  second  point  to  which  I  desire  to  call  attention  is 
this  :  tfce  great  advantage  nf  |cpepir>g  rpnl,  An  oral 
examination  lasting  three  hours  and  more,  going  into  the 
minutiae  of  two  years'  study,  and  driven  at  the  top  of  the 
examiners'  speed,  is  not  merely  a  test  of  the  candidate's 
knowledge  but  is  a  heavy  strain  upon  his  physique.  The 
least  shade  of  nervousness,  the  least  touch  of  headache 
may  lead  to  disastrous  results.  One  who  has  his  wits 
about  him  can,  let  the  worst  come  to  the  worst,  extricate 
himself  from  a  predicament  by  intimating  to  the  exami- 
ner that  he  concedes  his  ignorance  on  a  certain  point, 
but  is  ready  to  be  questioned  on  something  else.  There 
is  no  harm  done  by  this.  Examiners  are  not  inquisitors. 
The  candidate  must,  under  all  circumstances,  be  able  to 
give  to  himself  in  an  instant  a  clear  account  of  what  he 
is  saying.  He  must  never  suffer  himself  to  be  led  from 
bad  to  worse.  But  where  he  begins  to  stumble,  to  talk 
confusedly,  to  take  back  what  he  has  just  said,  and  then 
repeat  it,  and  then  take  it  back  again,  he  only  makes  his 
case  hopeless.  He  forgets  what  he  really  knows,  and 
tempts  to  impatience  those  who  would  otherwise  treat 
him  with  the  utmost  consideration.  Besides,  one  who  is 
under  perfect  self-control  is  rather  inspired  than  de- 
pressed by  a  searching  examination.  The  questions  act 
as  a  stimulus,  developing  to  a  surprising  extent  latent 
powers  of  memory  and  judgment.  A  fellow-countryman, 
who  took  his  degree  in  medicine  at  Gottingen,  narrated 
to  me  the  following  incident  of  his  examination.  After 
one  or  two  preliminary  questions  on  general  physiology, 


240  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

the  professor  asked  him  for  the  chemical  composition  of 
the  fatty  acids.  It  was  a  difficult  point,  and  one  upon 
which  he  had  not  thought  since  leaving  the  chemical 
laboratory,  upwards  of  two  years  before.  For  a  moment 
he  was  non-plussed.  But  preserving  his  coolness  and 
reflecting  quietly  but  rapidly,  he  felt  himself  transplanted 
in  imagination  to  the  old  lecture-room.  He  saw  the 
blackboard  before  him,  and  upon  it  the  formulae  as  they 
had  been  written  out  by  the  lecturer.  He  had  only  to 
read  them  off,  by  direct  vision,  as  it  were.  The  precision 
of  his  answer  gave  tone  to  all  the  rest  of  the  examination. 
But  to  do  this,  in  fact  to  pass  an  examination  with  any 
degree  of  satisfaction  and  credit,  one  must  be  fresh  in 
mind  and  fresh  in  body.  The  candidate  who  goes  into 
the  presence  of  the  examiners  tired  out  with  "  cram- 
ming," runs  the  risk  of  killing  his  chances.  I  speak  on 
this  point  with  the  confidence  of  one  who  has  been 
through  the  ordeal  and  knows  what  it  is.  Although  my 
general  health  had  suffered  from  excessively  rapid  prep- 
aration, yet  on  the  day  of  examination  itself,  thanks  to 
the  scrupulous  care  with  which  my  studies  had  been 
tapered  down  and  the  complete  rest  of  the  preceding 
twenty-four  hours,  I  was  enabled  to  meet  the  examiners 
with  as  much  unconcern  as  if  they  had  been  a  dinner- 
party of  friends.  No  amount  of  coolness,  it  is  true,  will 
make  one  know  what  he  does  not  know.  But  coolness, 
and  coolness  alone,  will  enable  the  candidate  to  show 
what  he  does  know  to  the  best  advantage.  At  the  risk  of 
wearying  the  reader,  I  venture  to  give  an  illustration  of 


EXAMINATION.  241 


the  folly  of  neglecting  the  laws  of  health.  Contempora- 
neous with  myself  at  Gl'ttingen  was  a  law-student  by  the 

name  of  M ,  from  Bremen.     He  was  unquestionably 

a  remarkable  man.  His  memory  was  something  pro- 
digious, and  was  surpassed  only  by  his  ambition  and  his 
capacity  for  work.  He  had  studied  the  full  term  of  six 
semesters,  and  had  set  his  heart  upon  obtaining  the  rare 
distinction  of  an  insigniter.  To  this  end,  he  had  studied 
with  what  seemed  at  times  the  fanaticism  of  an  idolator. 
Being  on  intimate  terms  with  him,  I  was  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  his  attainments,  and  set  the  highest  value 
upon  them.  He  displayed  a  maturity  of  mind  that  was 
incredible  in  one  only  twenty-three  or  twenty-four  years 
of  age.  Nothing  seemed  too  minute  to  escape  his  atten- 
tion, too  subtle  to  perplex  his  powers  of  comprehension. 
Taken  all  in  all,  he  was  the  ablest  student  that  I  have 
ever  met.  In  comparison  with  him,  I  felt  that  I  was  but 

little  better  than   a   school-boy.     Yet   M ,  despite 

advice  and  remonstrances,  simply  threw  away  the  prize 
just  as  it  came  within  his  reach.  He  was  examined  ex- 
actly one  week  before  myself.  Not  only  did  he  keep 
up  his  twelve  and  sixteen  hours  of  "  cram  "  from  Monday 
to  Friday,  but  he  committed  the  unpardonable  sin  of 
studying  all  Friday  night  and  all  Saturday  morning.  I 
met  him  Saturday  afternoon,  as  he  was  on  his  way  to  the 
examination.  To  use  a  boating-phrase,  he  was  "  pumped 
out  "  before  the  race.  Deep  black  rings  were  around  his 
eyes,  the  eyes  themselves  had  lost  their  lustre,  his  whole 
manner  was  painfully  nervous.  He  asked  me,  in  the 
21 


242  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

tone  of  a  dying  man  catching  at  a  straw,  whether  I  could 
think  of  any  subject  on  which  he  might  be  unprepared. 
I  suggested  one  or  two  formulae  which  had  never  oc- 
curred to  him.  He  made  me  repeat  them  until  he  had 
got  them  by  heart,  and  then  hurried  away.  What  took 

place  in  the  examination  never  transpired.     M left 

town  the  following  Monday,  without  bidding  his  friends 
good-bye.  He  passed  with  only  the  second  degree, 
which,  to  him,  was  little  better  than  none  at  all.  He  was 
a  disappointed  man.  Yet  he  had  no  one  but  himself  to 
blame.  Whoever  could  have  seen  him,  as  I  did,  only  ten 
minutes  before  the  examination,  would  not  have  needed 
the  gift  of  divination  to  foretell  the  result.  The  exam- 
iners, who  could  only  judge  by  what  they  saw  and  heard 
during  the  three  hours  of  examination,  doubtless  regarded 
the  candidate  as  a  young  man  who  had  overrated  his 
abilities,  who  had  worked  hard,  but  knew  nothing  thor- 
oughly and  clearly. 

In  America  there  is  a  widely  prevalent. practice  called 
"  reviewing  for  examination."  What  it  amounts  to,  every 
professor  knows  too  well.  Students  who  have  neg- 
lected their  studies  from  week  to  week,  preparing  them- 
selves only  when  they  expected  to  be  called  upon  to  recite, 
review  for  examination,  by  attempting  to  get  up  three 
months'  work  in  as  many  days.  Night  and  day  the  sud- 
denly industrious  toil  over  "  Trig.,"  or  Greek,  or  Logic, 
in  the  hope  of  mastering  just  enough  to  pass  without 
conditions.  The  idea  of  the  value  of  the  studies  as 
something  to  be  learned  for  future  use  has  never  occurred 


EXAMINATION.  243 


to  them.  Whether  the  fault  lies  wholly  with  the  student, 
or  the  collegiate  system  itself  is  to  come  in  for  a  share 
of  the  blame,  is  a  point  open  for  discussion.  Without 
attempting  to  settle  it  in  this  place,  may  I  take  the  liberty 
of  submitting  at  least  a  query  ?  Can  the  system  which 
grades  the  performances  of  young  men  down  to  the  per 
cent  and  fraction  of  the  per  cent,  and  lays  so  much  stress 
upon  good  recitations  and  good  examination-papers,  be 
a  happy  one  ?  Even  assuming  that  the  present  method 
of  recitations  will  be  retained,  is  it  necessary  that  the 
professor-teacher  shall  always  subordinate  instruction  to 
marking  ? 

The  candidate  who  has  passed  his  university  examina-' 
tion  is  not  yet  a  doctor.  He  is  only  a  doctorandus.  The 
ceremony  of  conferring  the  diploma  is  distinct  from  the 
examination,  and  is  confined  to  the  dean  and  the  candi- 
date. .On  the  Monday  after  the  examination,  I  called, 
by  appointment,  upon  Hofrath  Kraut  to  receive  the 
diploma.  This  document,  printed  on  parchment-paper 
and  not  on  parchment,  is  signed  by  the  dean  alone  in  the 
name  of  the  faculty,  and  sealed  with  the  great  seal  of  the 
university.  It  is  worded,  as  might  be  expected,  in  Latin. 
It  is  not  my  intention  to  inflict  the  text  upon  the  reader, 
especially  as  it  does  not  differ  much  in  style  from  the 
pompous  declarations  of  a  like  nature  issued  from  our 
American  colleges.  But  one  other  document  connected 
with  the  diploma  I  must  give  entire.  Before  presenting 
me  formally  with  the  diploma,  the  dean  said  :  "  Herr 
Hart,  you  must  first  sign  this  declaration :  " 


244  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

JUS    JURANDUM    A  J.  U.    DOCTORIBUS    IN    GEORGIA   AU- 
GUSTA    ANTE    RENUNCIATIONEM   PRAESTANDUM. 

Ego juro  atque  promitto,  me  supremos  in  jure  hon- 
or es  mihi  nunc  confer endos,  in  nulla  alia  universitate,  ut  mihi 
denuo  conferantur,  petiturum  vel  admissurum  ;  _porro,  quo- 
ties  continget,  ut  vel  publice  vel  privatim  sit  docendum,  scrib- 
endum,  patrocinandum,  judicandum,  vel  de  jure  responden- 
dum,  me  conscientiae,  legum,  justitiae,  veritatis  et  modestiae 
summam  semper  rationem  esse  habiturum,  nee  quidquam  in 
his,  quod  Dei  gloriae  vel  publicae  privatorumve  saluti  adver- 
sum  sit,  commissurum  ;  de  cetero  omnia,  quae  officium,  digni- 
tasque  doctor alis  postulat,  sincere  optimaque  fide  peracturum 
atque  praestiturum.  Ita  me  Deus  adjuvet  et  sacrosanctum 
ejus  evangelium. 

Abundantly  satisfied  with  the  honor  of  a  degree  of 
doctor  of  laws  from  the  University  of  Gottingen,  and 
unaware  of  any  intent  to  pervert  my  legal  attainments  to 
the  frustration  of  divine  or  human  justice,  I  signed  the 
declaration  cheerfully  and  with  a  good  conscience.  The 
dean  informed  me  that  it  was  a  relic  of  mediaevalism.* 
The  object  of  the  first  clause  was  to  suppress  the  prac- 
tice, once  common  among  candidates,  of  going  about 
begging  the  same  degree  from  different  universities.  The 
concluding  phrase,  et  sacrosanctum  ejus  evangelium,  is 
altered  in  cases  where  the  doctorandus  is  a  Hebrew. 

Within  twenty-four  hours  after  my  examination,  every 
one  in  town  who  knew  me  at  all  seemed  to  have  heard  of 

*  Gtfttingen  is  a  comparatively  modern  university  ;  but  in  this  respect  it  has 
adopted  the  manners  and  practices  of  the  others. 


EXAMINATION.  245 


my  success.  Even  the  waiters  put  on  an  extra  touch  of 
politeness,  and  greeted  me  as  Herr  Doctor.  Titles  have 
great  weight  in  Germany.  Perhaps  some  of  my  readers 
have  heard  of  the  German  Mrs.  Partington,  who  divides 
mankind  into  two  classes,  the  orderly  (prdentlichen)  and 
the  ^unorderly  (unordentlichen).  The  orderly  are  those 
who  have  an  order,  and  the  unorderly  are  those  who  have 
not.  The  case  is  not  quite  so  bad  as  that.  Still  there  can 
be  no  question  but  that  the  man  who  is  able  to  put  Doctor, 
or  Professor,  or  Rath  before  his  name  is  much  better  off, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  community  at  large,  than  one  who  is 
simply  Herr.  The  title  is  an  official  recognition  that  the 
wearer  is  a  person  of  some  culture  and  attainments. 

The  value  of  university  degrees  varies  greatly  with  the 
universities  themselves,  and  even  with  the  several  facul- 
ties of  the  same  university.  In  general,  the  degree  of  D. 
D.  is  not  given  in  course,  on  examination,  but  conferred 
only  honoris  causa,  that  is,  upon  men  who  have  distin- 
guished themselves  by  their  published  works.  With 
regard  to  the  degree  of  M.  D.,  the  requirements  are  exten- 
sive, and  are  strictly  enforced.  The  candidate  must 
have  studied  the  full  term  of  four  or  five  years,  and 
offered  very  satisfactory  dissertations,  before  he  is  admit- 
ted to  examination.  Jena,  I  believe,  is  the  only  univer-' 
sity  in  Germany  that  degrades  itself  by  selling  its  degrees 
to  foreign  applicants.  The  degree  of  J.  U.  D.  is  not 
often  sought  after  by  foreigners,  and  is  even  going  out  of 
vogue  among  the  Germans  themselves.  It  is  not  required 
for  admission  to  the  state  examination.  Ten  years  ago, 

*2I 


246  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES, 

Heidelberg  was  very  liberal  in  conferring  it,  while  Gut- 
tingen  was  just  the  reverse.  Whereas  the  philosophical 
faculty  of  Gottingen  was  liberal,  and  that  of  Heidelberg 
not.  In  general,  the  Prussian  universities  were  some- 
what stricter  than  the  others.  Berlin,  in  particular, 
pushed  its  rigor  to  unwarrantable  limits.  At  one  time  it 
was  almost  impossible  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
Berlin  faculty  in  philosophy.  Several  universities  made, 
and  still  make,  a  practice  of  excusing  the  candidate  for 
Ph.  D.  from  the  oral  examination.  This  is  called  taking 
the  degree  in  absentia.  The  candidate  submits  his  dis- 
sertation and  goes  out  of  town  for  a  few  days.  The 
fiction  is,  of  course,  that  he  is  called  away  by  some  unex- 
pected and  urgent  business.  To  obtain  the  degree  in 
absentia,  however,  one  must  prepare  a  very  elaborate  dis- 
sertation, containing  a  good  deal  of  original  matter.  In 
chemistry,  physics,  and  the  like,  where  the  candidate  has 
worked  two  or  three  years,  perhaps,  under  the  constant 
supervision  of  the  professors,  so  that  they  have  had 
abundant  opportunity  of  testing  his  knowledge  from 
week  to  week,  this  dispensing  with  the  examination  is  not 
such  an  evidence  of  laxity  as  it  would  seem.  Upon  the 
whole,  the  reader  may  take  for  granted  that  a  degree  is 
not  conferred  by  a  German  university  except  for  thorough 
and  bona  fide  work  in  that  special  department  of  study. 
Jena,  as  I  have  already  stated,  is  the  only  exception.  No 
German  university  showers  down  honorary  degrees  upon 
business  men  and  generals,  after  the  fashion  of  our 
American  colleges. 


PART    II. 


GENERAL     REMARKS. 


GENERAL  REMARKS. 


T^ROM  the  foregoing  personal  narrative  the  reader 
-*-  will  probably  be  able  to  obtain  a  glimpse  at  the 
mode  of  life  at  a  German  university,  to  the  extent  at  least 
of  realizing  how  an  American  may  live  and  study  there. 
Yet  there  are  certain  features  of  the  German  method  of 
higher  education  that  can  be  adequately  elucidated  only 
by  eliminating  the  personal  element  and  discussing  them 
in  their  more  general  bearings.  I  have  deemed  it  proper, 
therefore,  to  supplement  the  personal  narrative  with  the 
following  remarks  in  the  way.  of  criticism. 

I  revisited  Germany  in  1872-3.  In  that  time  I  studied 
at  Leipsic,  Marburg,  and  Berlin,  and  passed  a  summer  at 
Vienna.  Brought  thus  in  contact  with  professors,  stu- 
dents and  men  of  letters  in  the  great  German  centers  of 
thought,  I  had  ample  opportunity  of  reviewing  and  modi- 
fying early  impressions,  and  of  judging  the  university 
system  as  a  whole.  I  venture  to  offer  these  remarks, 
then,  as  the  result  of  recent  comparative  investigation. 
The  first  question  that  suggests  itself  is  naturally  this, 

I. 

What  is  a  University  ? 

To  the  German  mind  the  collective  idea  of  a  univer- 
sity implies  a  Zweck,  an  object  of  study,  and  two  Beding- 


250  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

ungeri)  or  conditions.  The  object  is  Wissenschaft ;  the 
conditions  are  Lehrfreiheit  and  Lernfreiheit.  By  Wissen- 
schaft the  Germans  mean  knowledge  in  the  most  exalted 
sense  of  that  term,  namely,  the  ardent,  methodical,  inde- 
pendent search  after  truth  in  any  and  all  of  its  forms,  but 
wholly  irrespective  of  utilitarian  application.  Lehrfrei- 
heit means  that  the  one  who  teaches,  the  professor  or 
Privatdocent)  is  free  to  teach  what  he  chooses,  as  he 
chooses.  Lernfreiheit^  or  the  freedom  of  learning,  denotes 
the  emancipation  of  the  student  from  Schulzivang^  com- 
pulsory drill  by  recitation. 

If  the  object  of  an  institution  is  anything  else  than 
knowledge  as  above  denned,  or  if  either  freedom  of  teach- 
ing or  freedom  of  learning  is  wanting,  that  institution,  no 
matter  how  richly  endowed,  no  matter  how  numerous  its 
students,  no  matter  how  imposing  its  buildings,  is  not,  in 
the  eye  of  a  German,  a  university.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
small,  out-of-the-way  place  like  Rostock,  with  only  thirty- . 
four  professors  and  docents,  and  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  students,  is  nevertheless  as  truly  a  university  as 
Leipsic,  where  the  numbers  are  one  hundred  and  fifty 
and  three  thousand  respectively,  because  Rostock  aims  at 
theoretical  knowledge  and  meets  the  requirements  of 
free  teaching  and  free  study.  The  difference  is  one  of 
size,  not  of  species. 

If  we  examine  the  list  of  lectures  and  hours  of  univer- 
sities like  Leipsic,  Berlin,  and  Vienna,  we  shall  be  over- 
whelmed, at  first  sight,  with  the  amount  and  the  variety 
of  literary  and  scientific  labor  announced.  The  field 


WHA  T  IS  A   UNI  VER  SITY.  251 

seems  boundless.  All  that  human  ingenuity  can  sug- 
gest is  apparently  represented.  On  examining  more 
closely,  however,  we  shall  find  that  this  seemingly  bound- 
less field  has  its  limits,  which  are  very  closely  traced  and 
which  are  not  exceeded.  Strange  as  it  may  sound  to  the 
American,  who  is  accustomed  to  gauge  spiritual  greatness 
by  big  numbers  and  extravagant  pretensions,  a  German 
university,  even  the  greatest,  perceives  what  it  can  do  and 
what  it  can  not  do. 

\  It  is  not  a  place^whereany  man  can  study  anything." 
Its  elevated  character  makes  it  all  the  more  modest.  It 
contents  itself  with  the  theoretical,  and  leaves  to  other 
institutions  the  practical  and  the  technical.  The  list  of 
studies  and  hours  for  Leipsic  in  the  semester  1872-3  fills 
thirty  octavo  pages.  In  all  that  list  we  shall  discover 
scarcely  one  course  of  work  that  can  be  called  in  strict- 
ness practical.  /A  German  university  has 

one  object:  to  train, thinkers. It  does  not  aim  at  pro- 

ducing  poets,  painters,  sculptors,  engineers,jnmersra.rc]ii- 
tects,  bankers,  manufacturers.  J  For  these,  the  places  of 
instruction  are  the  Art  Schools  of  Dresden,  Munich, 
Dusseldorf,  the  Commercial  Schools  at  Bremen,  Ham- 
burg, Berlin,  Frankfort,  the  Polytechnicums  at  Hanover, 
Frankenberg,  Stuttgart,  etc.  Even  in  the  professions 
themselves,  theory  and  practice  are  carefully  distin- 
guished, and  the  former  alone  is  considered  as  falling 
legitimately  within  the  sphere  of  university  instruction. 
Taking  up  the  four  faculties  in  order :  theology,  law, 


252  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

medicine,*  philosophy,  and  watching  them  at  work,  we 
shall  perceive  that  the  evident  tendency  of  their  method 
is  to  produce  theologians  rather  than  pastors,  jurists 
rather  than  lawyers,  theorizers  in  medicine  rather  than 
practitioners,  investigators,  scholars,  speculative  thinkers 
rather  than  technologists  and  school-teachers.  Yet  every 
pastor,  lawyer,  doctor,  teacher,  botanist,  geologist  has 
passed  through  the  university  course.  What  is  meant, 
then,  by  the  assertion  that  the  university  gives  only  theo- 
retical training  ?  Do  not  the  practical  men  in  all  the 
professions  receive  their  professional  outfit  at  the  univer- 
sity and  can  receive  it  nowhere  else  ?  The  seeming  dis- 
crepancy is  to  be  explained  only  by  considering  the 
university  as  a  permanent,  self-supporting  institution,  a 
world  in  itself,  existing  for  itself,  rather  than  a  mere  lad- 
der by  which  to  ascend  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  plane. 
Self-supporting,  I  mean,  of  course,  in  the  sense  that  the 
university  is  a  detached  organism  assimilating  and  grow- 
ing in  accordance  with  its  own  laws.  In  a  pecuniary 
sense,  it  is  wholly  or  almost  wholly  dependent  upon  state 
subvention.  The  distinction,  subtle  as  it  may  appear, 
is  essential  in  forming  a  just  conception  of  the  character 
of  university  work.  The  university  supplies  itself  with  its 

*  Medicine  seems  to  torm  an  exception  ;  the  universities  do  teach  the  prac- 
tice of  medicine  very  thoroughly.  Yet  the  exception,  which  is  apparent 
rather  than  real,  only  serves  to  illustrate  the  general  principle.  It  is  precisely 
because  medicine  is  so  much  a  matter  of  empiricism,  so  little  a  matter  of  pure 
science,  that  the  German  universities  teach  it  as  they  do.  Were  it  possible  to 
establish  a  science  of  medicine,  as  distinguished  from  the  mere  tentative  treat- 
ment of  disease,  we  should  find  the  practice  thrown  into  the  background  of  the 
university  course,  as  is  the  case  in  law  and  theology.  Even  as  it  is,  the  study 
of  medicine  is  made  as  theoretical  as  it  well  can  be. 


WHAT  IS  A  UNIVERSITY.  253 

educational  staff  exclusively  from  its  own  graduate  mem- 
bers, who  pass  their  entire  lives  within  its  precincts.  The 
professors,  assistant-professors,  docents  whose  names  one 
reads  in  the  catalogue  of  Berlin  or  Leipsic  or  Heidelberg 
are  one  and  all,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  men  who 
started  in  life  as  theoreticians  and  never  made  the  effort 
to  become  practitioners.  Tojjiem  the  university  was  not 
a  mere  preparatory  school,  where  they  might  remain  long 
enough  to  get  their  theoretical  training,  and  then  turn 
their  backs  upon  it  forever.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  an 
end,  a  career  in  itself.  They  have  always  been  univer- 
sity men,  and  never  expect  to  become  anything  else.  In 
this  place  I  must  guard  against  being  misunderstood.  The 
reader  would  receive  a  very  unfair  impression  of  Gottin- 
gen,  for  instance,  if  he  were  to  infer,  from  what  has  been 
said,  that  the  Gottingen  faculty  is  made  up  exclusively 
of  Gottingen  graduates.  Quite  the  reverse  is  the  case. 
Probably  two  thirds  come  from  elsewhere.  As  a  rule,  the 
young  Privatdocent  receives  his  first  call  as  professor 
from  a  university  where  he  has  not  been  known  as  a  stu- 
dent. There  exists  in  this  respect  complete  parity  among 
the  German  institutions  of  learning.  The  feeling  which.  - 
prompts  an  American  college  to  preJ^itsjiBai-firadua4:es- 
for  professors  is  something  quite  unknown  in 


I  leave  it.  to  the  reader's  judgment  to  decide  which  ofLthe 
two  systems  is  better  :  that  of  liberal  selection,  j)r  Jhat  of 
"breeding-in."  When  I  speak  of  a  university  as  recruit- 
ing exclusively  from  its  graduates,  I  mean  neither  Berlin 
nor  Leipsic  nor  Heidelberg  in  particular,  but  the  twenty 
22 


254  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

universities  of  the  German  empire  regarded  as  one  body, 
the  members  of  which  are  perfectly  co-ordinate.  Profes- 
sors and  docents,  and  even  students,  pass  from  one  to 
another  with  a  restlessness,  we  might  say,  that  would  be 
surprising  in  America,  but  which  is  looked  upon  in  Ger- 
many as  a  matter  of  course.  It  is  the  exception,  not  the 
rule,  when  a  man  passes  his  entire  career  as  instructor  in 
one  place.  The  key-note  of  the  system  is  simply  this.  To 
those  who  are  connected  with  the  university  in  any  instruc- 
tional capacity  whatever,  it  is  an  end  and  not  a  means,  a 
life  and  not  a  phase  of  life,  a  career  and  not  a  disci- 
pline. The  professors  are  not  selected  from  among  the 
leading  lawyers,  pastors,  doctors,  teachers,  scientists  of 
the  country  or  province.  When  a  chair  already  existing 
becomes  vacant,  or  a  new  chair  is  created,  and  the  ques- 
tion of  filling  it  comes  up,  the  Senatus  Academicus  does 
not  scrutinize  the  bench  or  the  bar  or  the  gymnasium  for 
an  available  man.  It  endeavors  to  ascertain  who  is  the 
most  promising  Privatdocent,  either  in  its  own  midst  or 
at  some  other  seat  of  learning,  the  young  man  who  has 
made  his  mark  by  recent  publications  or  discoveries. 
The  newly  organized  university  of  Strassburg  is  a  signal 
instance  in  point.  Within  two  years  after  the  close  of 
the  French  war,  Strassburg  was  opened  with  a  full  corps 
of  instructors  in  all  the  departments.  The  total  number 
at  present  is  eighty.  Yet  of  these  eighty  not  one,  so  far 
as  I  can  ascertain,  is  what  might  be  called  a  practitioner. 
They  are  all  full  or  half-professors  or  docents  called  from 
other  institutions  of  learning.  One  who  is  familiar  with 


WHA  T  IS  A  UNIVERSITY.  255 

the  muster-roll  of  the  universities  can  resolve  the  Strass- 
burg  list  into  its  elements,  saying :  This  man  came  from 
Berlin,  that  one  from  Vienna,  that  one  from  Wiirzburg, 
and  so  on.  The  reader  will  probably  say :  Is  not  this  the 
case  in  America  also  ?  Are  not  our  college  professors 
all  college  graduates  ?  To  which  the  answer  must  be : 
Not  in  the  same  way,  not  to  the  same  extent.  How 
many  of  our  college  professors  have  been  professors,  and 
nothing  else  ?  How  many  have  qualified  themselves 
directly  for  the  respective  chairs  which  they  occupy,  by  a 
life  of  special  study?  How  many  of  them  formed  the 
resolve  while  still  students,  to  lead  a  college  life  forever, 
to  devote  themselves  exclusively  to  instructing  others  in 
turn,  either  at  their  own  Alma  Mater  or  at  some  other 
college  ?  I  do  not  have  in  view  such  institutions  as  Yale 
and  Harvard,  old,  well  endowed,  fed  from  the  rich  soil 
of  New  England  culture.  I  mean  the  typical  American 
college  as  it  exists  in  the  Middle,  Southern,  and  Western 
States.  How  many  of  the  professors  have  been  in  busi- 
ness, or  tried  their  skill  at  farming,  engineering,  journal- 
ism ?  Has  or  has  not  the  professor  of  Latin  served  an 
apprenticeship  as  mathematical  tutor,  or  kept  a  boarding- 
school  for  young  ladies  ?  How  few  of  the  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  men,  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco, 
calling  themselves  professors,  can  say  with  a  comfortable 
degree  of  pride  :  I  selected  my  specialty  in  youth,  I  have 
pursued  it  without  intermission,  without  deviation  ever 
since,  and  I  have  produced  such  and  such  tangible  evi- 
dences of  my  industry  as  a  specialist. 


256  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

No,  the  reader  may  rest  assured  that  the  character  and 
atmosphere  of  a  German  university  differ  radically  from 
the  character  and  atmosphere  of  the  typical  American 
college.  It  is  a  difference  of  kind,  not  merely  of  degree. 
Comparisons,  according  to  the  popular  adage,  are  odious. 
Yet,  even  at  the  risk  of  giving  offense,  I  take  the  liberty 
of  drawing  a  comparison  that  may  serve,  perhaps,  to 
throw  some  light  on  this  vital  point.  At  all  events,  the 
comparison  shall  be  a  just  one.  Marburg,  in  Hesse,  has 
at  present  430  students  ;  Princeton,  my  Alma  Mater,  has 
420.  The  numbers,  then,  are  almost  identical.  Each  is 
located  in  a  small  country  town.  Yet  Princeton  has,  all 
told,  not  more  than  18  professors  and  tutors ;  Marburg 
has  62.  Among  them  are  men  renowned  throughout  the 
world  for  their  original  investigations.  The  same  might 
be  said,  indeed,  of  the  Princeton  faculty,  but  only  with 
grave  restrictions.  No  one  professor  at  Princeton  has 
the  opportunity  of  working  either  himself  or  his  students 
up  to  his  or  their  full  capacity.  The  instruction  goes  by 
routine,  each  professor  contributing  his  quota  to  the  sup- 
posed general  development  of  all  the  students  in  a  body. 
At  Marburg  there  is  the  fourfold  division  of  faculties ; 
there  are  students  pursuing  theology,  law,  medicine,  clas- 
sic philology,  modern  philology,  the  natural  sciences, 
history,  orientalia.  Each  instructor  has  his  select  band 
of  disciples,  upon  whom  he  acts  and  who  re-act  upon 
him.  There  is  the  same  quiet,  scholarly  atmosphere, 
the  same  disregard  for  bread-and-butter  study,  the  same 
breadth  of  culture,  depth  of  insight,  liberality  of  opinion 


f*\ 

WHA  T  IS  A  UNIVERSITY. 


and  freedom  of  conduct,  that  one  finds  in  the  most 
favored  circles  of  Leipsic,  Berlin,  Heidelberg,  or  Vienna. 
During  every  hour  of  the  two  months  that  I  passed  at 
Marburg,  I  was  made  to  feel  that  a  German  university, 
however  humble,  is  a  world  in  and  for  itself ;  that  its  aim 
is  not  to  turn  out  clever,  pushing,  ambitious  graduates, 
but  to  engender  culture. 

This  condition  is  both  cause  and  effect.  Many  of  the 
students  who  attend  the  university  do  so  simply  with  a 
view  to  becoming  in  time  professors.  The  entire  person- 
nel of  the  faculty  is  thus  a  close  corporation,  a  spiritual 
order  perpetuating  itself  after  the  fashion  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  hierarchy.  Inasmuch  as  every  professional  man 
and  every  school-teacher  of  the  higher  grades  has  to  pass 
through  the  university,  it  follows  that  the  shaping  of  the 
intellectual  interests  of  the  country  is  in  the  hands  of  a 
select  few,  who  are  highly  educated,  perfectly  homoge- 
neous in  character  and  sympathies,  utterly  indifferent  to  • 
the  turmoils  and  ambitions  of  the  outer-world,  who  regu-  r 
late  their  own  lives  and  mould  the  dispositions  of  those 
dependent  upon  them  according  to  the  principles  of  ab- 
stract truth.  The  quality  of  university  education,  then, 
is  determined  by  its  object,  and  that  object  is  to  train  not 
merely  skillful  practitioners,  but  also  future  professors. 
In  fact,  the  needs  of  the  former  class  are  subordinated  to 
the  needs  of  the  latter.  In  this  respect,  the  faculty  acts,  v 
unconsciously,  in  accordance  with  the  promptings  of  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation.  If  thorough  scientific  cul- 
ture is  an  essential  element  in  national  life,  it  must  be 


258  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

maintained  at  every  cost.  The  slightest  flaw  in  the  con- 
tinuity of  spiritual  descent  would  be  as  dangerous  as  a 
break  in  the  apostolic  succession  of  the  church.  Every 
inducement,  therefore,  must  be  held  out  to  young  men  to 
qualify  themselves  in  season  for  succeeding  to  their  pres- 
ent instructors.  The  lectures  and  other  instruction  must 
be  adapted  to  train  and  stimulate  Privat-docenten,  for 
they  are  the  ones  who  are  to  seize  and  wear  the  mantles 
of  the  translated  Elijahs.  For  every  professor  dead  or 
removed,  there  must  be  one  or  two  instantly  ready  to  fill 
his  place. 

This  is  not  the  avowed  object  of  the  university  course. 
One  might  pass  many  years  in  Germany  without  perceiv- 
ing it  stated  so  bluntly.  Yet  I  am  persuaded  that  it  is  at 
bottom  the  determining  factor  in  the  constitution  of  uni- 
versity life.  It  will  explain  to  us  many  incidental  features 
for  which  there  is  elsewhere  no  analogy ;  for  instance, 
the  sovereign  contempt  that  all  German  students  evince 
for  everything  that  savors  of  "  bread-and-butter."  The 
students  have  caught,  in  this  respect,  the  tone  of  their 
instructors.  Even  such  of  them  as  have  no  intention  of 
becoming  Privat-docenten  pass  three  and  four  years  of  their 
life  in  generous  devotion  to  study  pure  and  simple,  with- 
out casting  a  single  forward  glance  to  future  "  business." 
All  thought  of  practical  life  is  kept  in  abeyance.  The 
future  practitioners  and  the  future  theoreticians  sit  side 
by  side  on  the  same  bench,  fight  on  the  same  Mensur^ 
drink  at  the  same  Kneipe^  hear  the  same  lectures,  use  the 
same  books,  have  every  sentiment  in  common  ;  hence  the 


WHAT  IS  A  UNIVERSITY,  259 

perfect  rapport  that  exists  in  Germany  between  the  lawyer 
and  the  jurist,  the  pastor  and  the  theologian,  the  practic- 
ing doctor  and  the  speculative  pathologist,  the  gymnasial 
teacher  of  Latin  and  Greek  and  the  professed  philologist. 
Hence  the  celerity  with  which  innovating  ideas  spread  in. 
Germany.  Let  a  professor  in  the  university  of  Tiibin-  \ 
gen,  for  instance,  publish  a  work  on  some  abstruse,  diffi- 
cult topic,  in  which  he  threatens  to  overturn  previous 
theories  and  notions.  Why  is  it  that  in  a  month  or  two 
the  book  provokes  a  tempest  of  assent  or  dissent  from  far 
and  near  ?  Simply  because  every  practical  man  in  that 
line,  every  lawyer,  or  doctor,  or  pastor,  as  the  case  may 
be,  has  been  initiated  so  far  into  the  theory  of  his  pro- 
fession as  to  be  able  to  detect  at  a  glance  the  full  pur- 
port of  the  new  departure.  Let  the  book  contain  but  a 
single  mis-statement  of  an  historic  fact  or  an  established 
principle  of  natural  science,  and  a  hundred  angry  re- 
viewers pounce  upon  it  and  hold  it  up  to  public  condem- 
nation. Whereas,  in  this  country,  and  even  in  England 
also,  the  grossest  blunders  pass  unchallenged.  Our 
reviewers  are  either  ignorant  or  indifferent. 

To  repeat,  the  university  instruction  of  Germany  does 
not  attempt  to  train  successful  practical  men,  unless  it  be 
indirectly,  by  giving  its  students  a  profound  insight  into 
the  principles  of  the  science  and  then  turning  them  adrift 
to  deduce  the  practice  as  well  as  they  can  from  the  care- 
fully inculcated  theory.  Its  chief  task,  that  to  which  all 
its  energies  are  directed,  is  the  development  of  great  think- 
ers, men  who  will  extend  the  boundaries  of  knowledge. 


260  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Viewed  from  this  point,  then,  the  two  conditions,  Lehr- 
freiheit  and  Lernfreiheit,  are  not  only  natural  and  proper, 
but  are  absolutely  essential.  Were  the  object  of  higher 
education  merely  to  train  "  useful  and  honorable  mem- 
bers of  society,"  to  use  the  conventional  phrase  of  the 
panegyrists  of  the  American  system,  the  German  univer- 
sities might  possibly  change  their  character.  In  place  of 
professors  free  to  impart  the  choicest  results  of  their 
investigations,  they  might  substitute  pedagogues  with 
text-books  and  class-books,  noting  down  the  relative 
merits  and  demerits  of  daily  recitations.  In  place  of 
students  free  to  attend  or  to  stay  away,  free  to  agree  with 
the  professor  or  to  differ,  free  to  read  what  they  choose 
and  to  study  after  their  own  fashion,  they  might  create  a  set 
of  undergraduates  reciting  glibly  from  set  lessons  and 
regarding  each  circumvention  of  the  teacher  as  so  much 
clear  gain.  But  the  Germans  know  perfectly  well  wherein 
the  value  of  their  university  education  lies.  They  know 
that  speculative  thought  alone  has  raised  Germany  from 
her  former  condition  of  literary  and  political  dependence 
to  the  foremost  rank  among  nations.  The  gain  is  not 
without  its  sacrifice.  Many  a  young  man  who,  under 
another  method,  might  be  drilled  into  a  tolerable  alum- 
nus, falls  by  the  way-side  through  idleness  and  dissipa- 
tion. For  one  who  succeeds,  two  or  three  fail.  Yet  the 
sacrifice  is  unavoidable.  If  German  thought  is  to  con- 
tinue in  its  career  of  conquest,  if  the  universities  are  to 
remain  what  they  are,  the  training-ground  of  intellectual 
giants,  the  present  system  of  freedom  must  be  maintained. 


WHA  T  TS  A  UNIVERSITY.  261 

The  professor  has  but  one  aim  in  life  :  scholarly  renown. 
To  effect  this,  he  must  have  the  liberty  of  selecting  his 
studies  and  pushing  them  to  their  extreme  limits.  The 
student  has  but  one  desire :  to  assimilate  his  instructor's 
learning,  and,  if  possible,  to  add  to  it.  He  must,  there- 
fore, be  his  own  master.  He  must  be  free  to  accept  and 
reject,  to  judge  and  prove  all  things  for  himself,  to  train 
himself  step  by  step  for  grappling  with  the  great  prob- 
lems of  nature  and  history.  Accountable  only  to  him- 
self for  his  opinions  and  mode  of  living,  he  shakes  off 
spiritual  bondage  and  becomes  an  independent  thinker. 
He  must  think  for  himself,  for  there  is  no  one  set  over 
him  as  spiritual  adviser  and  guide,  prescribing  the  work 
for  each  day  and  each  hour,  telling  him  what  he  is  to 
believe  and  what  to  disbelieve,  and  marking  him  up  or 
down  accordingly. 

The  universities  occupy,  then,  an  impregnable  position. 
Recruiting  their  tuitional  forces  (Lehrkr'dfte)  from  among 
themselves,  they  are  independent  of  the  outer  world. 
Subjecting  all  young  men  of  education,  the  future  law- 
yers, legislators,  doctors,  statesmen,  school-teachers  to 
their  own  peculiar  discipline,  infusing  into  them  their 
own  peculiar  spirit  of  freedom,  they  raise  up  for  them- 
selves allies  all  over  the  land.  It  is  not  in  my  power  to 
give  the  exact  statistics  either  of  the  present  Imperial 
Parliament  of  Germany  or  of  any  one  of  the  national 
diets.  But  I  am  warranted  in  saying  that  a  majority  of 
the  members  of  every  legislative  body  in  Germany,  and 
three  fourths  of  the  higher  office-holders,  and  all  the 


262  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

heads  of  departments  are  university  graduates,  or  have  at 
least  taken  a  partial  university  course,  enough  to  catch 
the  university  spirit.  All  the  controlling  elements  of  Ger- 
man national  life,  therefore,  have  been  trained  to  sympa- 
thize with  the  freedom,  intellectual  and  individual,  which 
is  the  characteristic  of  the  university  method.  The 
nation  is  devotedly  attached  to  its  institutions  of  learn- 
ing, and  will  never  suffer  their  influence  or  their  privi- 
leges to  be  abated  an  iota.  This  has  been  shown 
/  repeatedly.  No  country  in  Germany  can  be  more  arbi- 
trary at  times  than  Prussia.  Yet  the  Prussian  govern- 
ment, which  has  more  than  once  stood  in  direct  conflict 
with  the  university  of  Berlin,  has  always  evinced  its  good 
sense  by  yielding  in  season.*  During  the  dreary  period 
of  the  reign  of  Frederick  William  IV.,*  an  attempt  was 
made,  under  the  Eichhorn  Ministry  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion, to  introduce  certain  innovations.  The  number  of 
professors  was  to  be  fixed,  the  students  were  to  be  com- 
pelled to  attend  lectures,  the  new  professors  themselves 
were  to  be  selected  among  the  higher  public  officials. 
But  the  university  stood  firm,  and  the  attempt  failed 
signally.  In  the  "  conflict-period  "  immediately  preced- 
ing the  Austro-Prussian  war  of  1866,  the  university  of 
Berlin,  notoriously  democratic,  i.  e.,  anti-squirarchical,  in 
its  sympathies,  asserted  its  right  of  regulating  its  own 

*  Frederick  William  IV.  was  personally  a  most  amiable  sovereign,  but 
prejudiced,  rather  bigoted,  and  occasionally  fanatic.  Many  of  his  views  were 
visionary,  not  to  say  Quixotic.  Ranke,  in  his  Correspondence  between  Frede- 
rick William  IV.  and  Bunsen,  has  vainly  endeavored  to  show  the  King  in  a 
pleasing  light. 


WHA  T  IS  A  UNIVERSITY.  263 

affairs  and  refused  point  blank  to  take  from  certain  of 
the  professors  the  venias  docendi  for  publicly  expressing 
their  disapproval  of  the  acts  of  the  Bismarck  ministry. 
The  German  mind,  with  all  its  painful  observance  9f 
forms  and  subservience  to  powers  that  be,  has  an  ineradi- 
cable love  of  spiritual  freedom.  Long  after  the  student 
has  passed  into  the  land  of  Philistia,  becoming  there  a 
humdrum  deputy  tax-collector,  or  justice  of  the  peace, 
or  road-inspector,  or  village  parson,  the  casual  recollec- 
tion of  his  boisterously  happy  student-days  comes  over 
him  like  the  vision  of  another  world.  It  lifts  him  out  of 
his  dull,  plodding  round  and  makes  him  for  the  nonce  a 
child  of  light.  You  have  but  to  strike  the  university- 
chord  in  the  breast  of  the  first  squatting  Philistine  in  the 
first  village  of  Suabia  or  Thuringia,  and  he  springs  up 
transformed  like  Lucifer  at  the  touch  of  the  spear  of 
Ithuriel.  He  is  ready  to  drop  his  drudgery,  to  carouse 
with  you  all  day  and  all  night,  to  tell  of  his  exploits 
at  the  Kneipe  and  the  Mensur,  his  fights  with  peasants 
and  night-watchmen,  to  listen  with  rapt  attention  to  all 
that  you  may  have  to  relate  of  the  Georgia-Augusta  or 
the  Ruperta-Carolina  of  golden  memory.  The  German 
instinct  is  not  always  quick,  but  it  is  always  true.  What- 
ever else  the  German  may  learn  or  unlearn,  he  will  never 
cease  to  feel  that  the  university  triennium  was  the  one 
period  of  his  life  when  he  was  a  free  man ;  he  will  never 
fail  to  perceive  that  the  university  itself  is  the  stronghold 
of  the  German  spirit,  its  place  of  refuge  from  ministerial 
rescripts  and  petty  police  regulations,  the  only  safety- 


, 


264  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

valve  for  its  pent-up  energy.  We  Americans,  who  live 
in  a  surfeit  of  freedom,  as  it  were,  can  dispense  perhaps 
with  the  libertas  academica  j  but  the  Germans  know  too 
w^ll  that  it  is  the  only  phase  in  the  life  of  the  educated 
classes  that  prevents  that  life  from  becoming  an  intolera- 
ble monotony. 

II. 

Professors. 

The  character  of  the  German  professor  will  be  best 
understood  by  first  disposing  of  the  preliminary  ques- 
tion :  What  is  he  not  ? 

The  professor  is  not  a  teacher,  in  the  English  sense  of 
the  term ;  he  is  a  specialist.  He  is  not  responsible  for 
the  success  of  his  hearers.  He  is  responsible  only  for 
the  quality  of  his  instruction.  His  duty  begins  and  ends 
with  himself. 

No  man  can  become  a  professor  in  a  German  univer- 
sity without  having  given  evidence,  in  one  way  or  another, 
that  he  has  pursued  a  certain  line  of  study,  and  produced 
results  worthy  to  be  called  novel  and  important.  In 
other  words,  to  become  a  professor,  he  must  first  have 
been  a  special  investigator.  Professional  chairs  are  not 
conferred  "  on  general  principles,"  or  because  the  candi- 
date is  "  a  good  teacher,"  or  u  well  qualified  to  govern 
the  young."  Neither  is  there  such  springing  about  from 
one  department  of  study  to  another  as  we  observe  in 
America.  Each  of  the  two  thousand  professors  now  lee- 


PROFESSORS.  265 


taring  in  Germany  has  risen  from  the  ranks,  first  as  gym- 
nasiast,  then  as  student,  then  as  Privat-docent  in  a  special 
branch.  As  Privat-docent,  he  makes  some  discovery  in 
botany,  or  in  chemistry,  or  in  anatomy,  or  publishes  some 
treatise  on  historical,  philological,  or  theological  topics, 
that  attracts  attention  and  elicits  favorable  comment. 
The  discoverer  or  the  author  becomes  at  once  a  man  of 
mark,  a  candidate  for  the  next  vacant  chair.  Living  at 
Bonn,  perhaps,  or  Wurzburg,  he  continues  his  work.  In 
the  course  of  a  year  or  two,  a  vacancy  occurs  at  Heidel- 
berg. The  Heidelberg  faculty,  every  one  of  whom  has 
probably  read  his  publications  and  recognized  in  him  a 
valuable  co-worker,  give  him  a  call.  This  he  accepts, 
removes  to  his  new  field  of  labor,  and  continues  there 
his  investigations.  Probably  he  is  at  Heidelberg  only 
ausser ordentlicher.  But  his  fame  spreads  more  and  more. 
A  full  professorship  becomes  vacant  at  Berlin ;  he  is 
called  once  more,  as  ordentlicher.  During  these  succes- 
sive stages,  as  student,  Privat-docent,  ausserordentlicher, 
ordentlicher  Professor,  he  has  not  made  a  single  change 
in  his  line  of  study.  He  has  been  throughout  an  orien- 
talist, a  classic-philologist,  a  mathematician,  a  chemist,  an 
historian,  or  a  theologian.  His  time  and  energies  have 
been  devoted  exclusively  to  one  limited  branch  of  inves- 
tigation, with  a  view  to  making  discoveries.  He  has  not 
taught  a  single  hour.  He  has  simply  "  read  "  a  course  or 
two  of  lectures  each  semester,  and  has  published  three 
or  four  books.  His  personal  character  may  be  compara- 
tively unknown  to  the  faculty  that  give  him  a  call.  They 


266  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

do  not  regard  in  him  the  man  so  much  as  the  scholar. 
It  would  be  fatuitous  to  assert  that  personal  considera- 
tions go  for  nothing  in  Germany.  Many  a  man  has  been 
put  into  or  kept  out  of  a  professorial  chair  because  he 
had  made  himself  agreeable  or  obnoxious  to  one  or 
more  of  those  who  held  the  right  of  nomination.  An 
instance  occurs  to  me  where  one  of  the  greatest  scholars 
in  Germany,  the  greatest  in  his  own  line,  was  barred  for 
years  from  a  call  to  any  of  the  Prussian  universities, 
because  he  had  published  a  scathing  review  of  a  treatise 
by  the  leading  professor  in  that  department  at  Berlin.  Yet 
even  here  the  quarrel  could  scarcely  be  called  personal, 
inasmuch  as  the  two  men  had  never  met.  The  offender, 
in  particular,  was  one  of  the  mildest-mannered  men  in 
private  intercourse.  The  conflict  was  not  one  of  men, 
but  rather  of  views,  of  principles.  Each  insisted  that  he 
himself  was  right  and  the  other  absurdly  wrong.  Mere 
personal  favoritism  has  not  much  weight  in  university 
appointments.  The  utmost  that  it  can  do  is  to  turn  the 
scales  where  the  scholarly  merits  of  competing  candidates 
are  balanced,  or  nearly  balanced;  but  it  will  not  be 
strong  enough  to  smuggle  in  a  candidate  who  has  not 
unquestioned  abilities. 

Professorial  life  is  quiet  and  uneventful.  Once  a  pro- 
fessor, always  a  professor.  All  the  ordentlicheny  and 
nearly  all  the  ausserordentlichen,  draw  fixed  salaries  from 
the  university  treasury,  and  receive  in  addition  the  fees 
paid  for  their  lectures.  A  few  of  the  most  celebrated 
lecturers  on  law,  medicine,  and  chemistry  are  in  the 


PROFESSORS.  267 


receipt  of  incomes  that,  for  Germany,  are  very  good. 
Vangerow,  for  instance,  who  had  always  one  hundred 
and  fifty  or  two  hundred  hearers,  each  one  paying  not 
less  than  $10  a  semester,  and  who  derived  a  large  reve- 
nue from  the  sale  of  his  works,  in  addition  to  his  regular 
salary,  was  well  off.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  lead- 
ing men  in  the  medical  faculties  of  Berlin  and  Vienna, 
who  have  a  large  and  lucrative  professional  practice. 
But  in  general  a  professor  is  a  man  of  very  limited 
means,  who  has  to  practice  close  economy  and  be  con- 
tent with  the  plainest  housekeeping.  Yet  the  life,  which 
offers  so  few  inducements  to  the  money-seeker,  is  in  the 
main  a  pleasant  one.  The  position  itself  is  one  of  high 
dignity,  especially  in  the  smaller  towns,  such  as  Gottingen, 
Heidelberg,  Bonn,  Wurzburg,  and  the  like.  The  Germans, 
it  is  well  known,  are  sticklers  for  rank.  It  is  no  small 
matter,  then,  to  a  man  of  cultivated  tastes,  to  feel  that, 
however  humble  he  may  seem  from  a  pecuniary  point  of 
view,  nobody  in  town  can  outrank  him.  The  professors 
and  their  wives  constitute  the  good  society  of  the  place. 
They  can  scarcely  be  said  to  set  the  fashion,  for  the  Ger- 
man provincial  towns  are  out  of  the  world  of  fashion. 

The  chief  attraction  in  the  professorial  career,  how- 
ever, is  the  nature  of  the  work  itself.  No  human  lot,  it 
is  true,  is  without  its  trials.  The  life  of  a  professor  is 
anything  but  a  bed  of  roses.  It  means  severe  intellec- 
tual toil  from  morning  till  evening,  from  manhood 
to  declining  years.  But  there  is  a  freedom  about 
it  that  is  inexpressibly  fascinating.  The  professor 


268  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

is  his  own  master.  His  time  is  not  wasted  in  cudg- 
eling the  wits  of  refractory  or  listless  reciters.  His 
temper  is  not  ruffled  by  the  freaks  or  the  downright 
insults  of  mutinous  youths.  He  lectures  upon  his  chosen 
subject,  comments  upon  his  favorite  Greek  or  Roman  or 
early  German  or  Sanscrit  author,  expounds  some  recently 
discovered  mathematical  theorem,  discusses  one  or  an- 
other of  the  grave  problems  of  history  or  morals,  and  is 
accountable  only  to  his  own  conscience  of  what  is  true 
and  what  is  false.  He  lectures  only  to  those  who  are  wil- 
ling and  able  to  hear.  He  is  sustained  by  the  conscious- 
ness that  his  words  are  not  scattered  by  the  wayside,  but 
that  they  fall  upon  soil  prepared  to  receive  them,  and 
will  bring  forth  new  fruit  in  turn.  His  relation  to  his 
hearers  is  that  of  one  gentleman  speaking  to  another. 
He  is  not  in  perpetual  dread  of  hearing  himself  nick- 
named, of  seeing  his  features  caricatured  ;  his  domestic 
repose  is  not  disturbed  by  midnight  serenades.  He  ad- 
dresses his  pupils  as  men  who  know  perfectly  well  what 
they  are  about,  and  whom  he  must  seek  to  enlighten  or 
convince.  To  make  the  method  of  instruction  more 
evident,  we  have  only  to  picture  to  ourselves  a  man  like 
George  Curtius,  of  Leipsic,  "  reading  "  on  the  Odyssey. 
He  begins  probably  with  a  general  introduction  to  the 
Homeric  question,  spending  perhaps  a  fortnight  in  setting 
forth  his  views  and  refuting  the  views  of  others.  He 
then  gives  a  detailed  description  of  all  the  manuscripts 
of  the  poem,  their  comparative  merits  and  deficiencies, 
and  also  the  best  modern  critical  editions.  Then  follow- 


PROFESSORS. 


ing  some  generally  received  text,  he  translates,  either 
carefully,  line  by  line,  or  else  rapidly,  according  as  the 
passage  may  be  difficult  or  easy.  As  he  goes,  he  makes 
historical,  sesthetical,  linguistic  excursions.  By  the  end 
of  the  semester  he  has  probably  finished  only  a  few 
books.  But  his  hearers,  who  have  listened  attentively 
and  with  minds  prepared  by  their  gymnasial  training, 
have  caught  the  essence  of  the  poem  and  its  relations, 
and  can  henceforth  study  it  for  themselves.  This  pre- 
supposes of  course  that  the  hearers  are  already  good 
Greek  scholars.  But  how  is  it  where  the  language  is 
Sanscrit  or  Persian  or  Gothic,  something  which  the  hear- 
ers do  not  know  beforehand,  but  must  commence  from 
the  very  beginning  ?  Here  the  professor  generally  be- 
comes a  teacher,  yet  in  a  very  informal  way.  He  either 
dictates  the  grammar  from  his  own  manuscript,  or  takes 
the  class  through  a  printed  work,  and  then  sets  them  to 
reading.  The  lessons,  if  they  can  be  called  such,  are 
unmercifully  long.  Ewald  at  Gottingen  used  to  rush  his 
Persian  class  through  the  phonology  and  morphology  of 
that  language  in  three  or  four  weeks,  and  set  them  to 
translating  two  and  three  pages  at  a  lesson.  But,  as  my 
informant  added,  "  We  could  not  help  learning.  We  were 
carried  along  by  the  genius  of  the  teacher."  I  can  state, 
on  my  own  personal  knowledge,  that  Benfey  is  capable 
of  assigning  twenty  pages  of  irregular  verbs  in  Sanscrit 
at  a  time.  When  a  German  professor  teaches  after  this^ 
fashion,  his  pupils  must  keep  up  or  else  drop  out.  There 
is  no  alternative.  In  the  matter  of  translating,  the  prac- 

*23 


270  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

tice  varies.  Some  professors  let  the  students  read  off  the 
original  and  translate,  merely  correcting  them  when  they 
make  a  mistake ;  others  do  the  translating  themselves, 
and  expect  the  class  to  copy  down  all  that  is  said.  How- 
ever difficult  the  labor  of  preparation  may  be,  the  pupil 
has  always  one  consolation.  He  feels  that  he  is  learn- 
ing ;  that  he  is  in  the  hands  of  a  master  whose  words  are 
those  of  wisdom  and  whose  enthusiasm  is  contagious. 
There  is  something  intoxicating  in  the  consciousness  that 
you  are  putting  forth  your  best  energies,  not  to  get  good 
marks,  but  to  catch  the  subtle  spirit  of  some  difficult 
language  and  win  the  silent  approbation  of  its  world- 
renowned  expounder. 

As  a  class,  the  professors  of  Germany  are  hard-work- 
ers. One  who  has  never  tried  the  experiment  might 
suppose  that  it  is  not  so  very  difficult  to  lecture  eight  or 
ten  hours  a  week.  The  mere  reading-off  is  perfectly 
easy ;  but  the  labor  of  preparing  a  set  of  lectures  that 
shall  be  acceptable  to  a  community  so  fastidious  in  its 
tastes,  as  a  university,  is  immense.  The  professor  being  a 
specialist,  it  is  expected  of  him  that  he  shall  produce 
something  especially  good,  that  he  shall  be  up  to  the 
times.  There  are  a  few  "  old  fogies,"  men  who  live  on  the 
reputation  that  they  acquired  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago. 
But  they  form  a  very  small  minority.  A  professor  who 
has  any  ambition  whatever,  who  is  anxious  to  spare  him- 
self the  mortification  of  reading  to  empty  benches,  must 
recast  his  lectures  continually,  striking  out  exploded 
errors,  incorporating  new  discoveries.  The  German 


PROFESSORS.  271 


brain  is  prolific.  The  sight  of  the  semi-annual  catalogue 
of  new  publications  in  Germany  is  enough  to  unhinge 
the  strongest  mind.  The  professor  must  keep  abreast 
with  the  swelling  tide.  He  must  study  each  new  work 
in  his  own  department,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  knowing 
what  novelties  it  contains,  and  how  they  agree  or  disa- 
gree with  his  own  views.  If  he  does  not,  if  he  falls 
behind,  some  ambitious  rival,  some  aspiring  Privat-docent, 
will  overtake  and  pass  him.  In  this  respect,  the  students 
are  quick-witted  and  exacting.  No  sooner  do  they  dis- 
cover that  one  professor  represents  the  state  of  investi- 
gation as  it  was  ten  or  only  five  ye  irs  ago,  while  another 
gives  it  as  it  actually  is,  than  they  desert  in  a  body  to  the 
younger  man.  Herein  lies  the  real  strength  of  the  Ger- 
man professorial  system  and  the  check  upon  the  abuses 
of  Lehrfreiheit.  A  professor  is  free  to  lecture  upon 
what  topics  he  chooses ;  he  is  not  compelled  to  modify 
his  views.  But  if  he  persists  in  offering  stale  matter,  in 
selecting  topics  that  have  ceased  to  interest,  he  does  so 
at  the  peril  of  losing  his  prestige  and  his  hearers. 

The  pressure  upon  the  professors,  accordingly,  is  heavy 
and  unremitting.  But  they  meet  it  nobly.  There  is 
probably  not  another  body  of  men  in  the  world  so  keenly 
alive  to  the  signs  of  the  times,  so  thoroughly  versed  in 
the  current  literature  of  their  special  departments,  so 
productive  of  new  works.  I  can  think  of  no  more  strik- 
ing instance  than  the  historian  Ranke.  One  might 
imagine  that  the  History  of  the  Popes,  and  the  History 
of  the  Reformation,  published  thirty  or  forty  years  ago, 


272  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

were  enough  to  entitle  the  author  to  rest  on  his  laurels. 
Yet  they  were  followed  by  a  stately  series  of  additional 
works  :  Frame  in  the  Seventeenth  Century ;  England  in 
the  Seventeenth  Century  (each  work  comprising  many  vol- 
umes) ;  Wallenstein ;  Origin  of  the  Seven  Years'  War  j 
German  Powers  and  the  Confederation  of  Princes  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century  ;  Correspondence  of  Frederick  William 
IV.  and  Bunsen.  Scarcely  a  semester  passes  without  the 
announcement  of  a  fresh  work  from  the  pen  of  this  ven- 
erable giant,  now  rapidly  approaching  his  eightieth  year. 
The  chief  defect  in  the  character  of  the  German  pro- 
fessors as  a  class  is  one  that  arises  of  necessity  from  their 
mode  of  life.  Devoted  to  a  narrow  range  of  study,  living 
in  comparative  seclusion,  they  are  unpractical  in  many 
ways  and  intolerant  of  dissent.  What  a  German  profes- 
sor teaches,  he  teaches  with  an  intensity  of  conviction 
that  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  or  hesitancy.  I  should  be 
loth  to  call  this  trait  fanaticism.  Certainly  it  is  not  the 
fanaticism  of  ignorance,  or  of  one-sidedness ;  the  pro-, 
fessor,  it  may  be  safely  assumed,  has  looked  at  the  ques- 
tion from  every  side  and  weighed  the  evidence.  It  is 
rather  the  intolerance  inherent  in  one  who  is  not  troubled 
with  doubts  and  who  fails  to  understand  why  another 
should  stumble  over  what  is  to  him  so  plain.  It  springs 
from  want  of  familiarity  with  the  world,  want  of  apprecia- 
tion of  the  complex  motives  that  determine  human 
opinion  no  less  than  human  action.  Man  is  not  a  purely 
intellectual  being;  the  individual  status  of  each  one  is 
the  resultant  of  all  sorts  of  forces,  prejudices,  temptations, 


PROFESSORS,  273 


inherited  sentiments.  Yet  things  are  judged  in  Germany 
too  exclusively  by  the  standard  of  pure  intellect.  The 
Germans  neglect  the  glorious  example  set  them  by  their 
national  genius,  Goethe,  and  overlook  in  their  criticisms 
the  individuality  of  the  person  criticized.  Of  course 
there  are  many  bright  exceptions,  but  as  a  rule  German 
critics  judge  everything  by  some  exalted,  ideal  standard 
of  what  is  absolutely  right  and  absolutely  wrong.  Does 
a  literary  production  come  up  to  this  standard  ?  Well 
and  good.  If  it  does  not, —  off  with  the  fellow's  head ! 
Hence  the  sweeping  condemnations  that  one  finds  in 
every  list  of  book  reviews,  the  bitter  literary  feuds  that 
have  been  waged  and  are  still  waged  over  debatable 
points  where  one  might  expect  some  degree  of  charity, 
some  latitude  of  belief.  Not  all  critics  are  professors, 
but  all  professors  are  critics.  Notices  and  reviews  of 
publications  not  purely  belletristic  or  ephemeral  in  their 
nature  are  generally  written  by  professors  or  docents, 
who  thus  give  the  tone. 

The  relation  between  professor  and  student  is,  if  not 
positively  friendly,  at  least  pleasant.  The  chief  drawback 
to  the  lot  of  a  professor  in  America,  namely,  police-duty 
and  discipline,  does  not  exist  in  Germany.  The  profes- 
sor, as  such,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  university 
discipline.  Unless  he  happens  to  be  a  member  of  the 
university  court,  and  this  he  cannot  be  unless  he  is  a 
jurist,  or  the  rector  for  the  time  being,  he  is  not  called 
upon  to  pass  sentence  upon  a  student's  conduct.  He  is 
not  obliged  to  fritter  away  many  hours  a  week  of  his 


274  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

valuable  time  in  deciding  whether  Smith  was  really 
suffering  from  the  measles  or  only  shamming,  whether 
Jones  ought  to  be  sent  home  for  three  months  or  six 
months  for  breaking  a  tutor's  windows.  He  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  students  as  a  body,  does  not  know  more  than 
a  tenth  of  them  by  sight  or  by  name ;  his  dealings  are 
exclusively  with  the  few  who  sit  in  his  lecture-room.  If 
the  exercises  are  of  a  colloquial  nature,  as  for  instance  in 
the  numerous  practica,  exegetica,  seminaria^  and  cliniques, 
he  makes  naturally  an  informal  estimate  of  each  pupil's  ca- 
pacities. But  he  keeps  no  record  either  of  their  perform- 
ances or  of  their  attendance.  In  consequence,  neither 
professor  nor  student  has  any  inducement  to  chicane  each 
the  other.  They  hold  the  relation  of  giver  and  receiver. 
A  student  may  pass  his  entire  term  of  study  at  the 
university  without  coming  in  personal  contact  with  his 
professors.  He  may  simply  listen  from  semester  to 
semester,  pursue  his  collateral  researches  for  himself,  get 
his  Anmeldungsbuch  signed,  and  leave  for  the  state- 
examination  without  exchanging  a  hundred  words  with 
all  his  teachers.  In  philosophy,  mathematics,  law,  his- 
tory, this  is  possible.  In  medicine,  chemistry,  and  the 
languages,  it  is  not.  But  even  where  it  is  possible,  stu- 
dents generally  prefer  to  adopt  another  course.  They 
seek  the  acquaintance  of  some  at  least  of  their  instruct- 
ors. Where  they  fail,  the  fault  will  be  found  to  lie  with 
the  professor  himself,  who  is  too  absorbed  in  his  own 
researches,  too  uncongenial  in  his  character,  to  take  any 
direct,  personal  interest  in  his  hearers.  But  many  of  the 


PXOFESSOXS.  275 

professors  are  more  liberal,  making  it  a  point  to  invite 
students  to  their  houses  from  time  to  time.  Some  indeed 
have  set  re-unions,  which  any  one  in  the  course  is  free  to 
attend.  The  conversation  at  these  re-unions  is  not  neces- 
sarily "shop."  George  Curtius,  the  celebrated  Greek 
scholar  at  Leipsic,  holds  his  re-unions,  I  believe,  with 
great  success.  In  the  first  part  of  the  present  work,  I 
have  spoken  at  length  of  the  very  pleasant  relations  exist- 
ing between  myself  and  the  Geheimjustizrath  v.  Ribben- 
tropp.  Such  perfect  freedom  of  intercourse  is  not  usual. 
Yet  something  of  the  sort  may  be  established,  by  perse- 
verance, in  every  university.  If  the  student  is  in  earnest, 
he  will  in  time  induce  some  one  of  his  numerous  profes- 
sors to  treat  him  as  a  friend  and  companion. 

It  may  not  be  superfluous  to  say  a  word  or  two  con- 
cerning the  ausserordentlichen  professors,  as  distinguished 
from  the  ordentlichen.  The  ordentlichen  are  the  full  pro- 
fessors ;  but  it  would  be  a  grave  mistake  to  suppose  that 
the  ausserordentlichen  are  what  we  style  assistant-profes- 
sors. They  are  inferior  in  rank  to  the  full  professors,  but 
they  are  not  direct  subordinates.  The  full  professor 
cannot  say  to  the  other :  "  I  reserve  such  and  such  work 
for  myself.  You  must  teach  certain  other  branches." 
Each  is  independent  of  the  other,  and  each  is  subject 
only  to  the  full  Senatus  Academicus.  The  ausserordent- 
licher  does  not  supplement  the  work  of  the  ordentlicher, 
but  can  compete  directly  with  him.  These  junior  pro- 
fessorships are  mere  rounds  in  the  ladder  of  ascent ;  they 
are  not  lieutenancies. 


276  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

III. 

Privatdocentcn. 

In  the  previous  portion  of  the  present  work  I  have 
indicated  briefly  my  opinion  as  to  the  character  and 
functions  of  the  Privatdocent.  This  will  not  absolve  me 
from  the  necessity  of  going  into  this  feature  of  university 
instruction  more  in  detail,  for  here  more  than  anywhere 
else  does  the  .German  university  differ  from  other  institu- 
tions of  learning. 

In  the  first  place,  the  decent  is  not  a  tutor.  He  is 
neither  the  tutor  of  England  nor  the  tutor  of  America. 
At  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  the  tutors*  are  Fellows  of  the 
respective  colleges,  and  are  the  persons  who  conduct  all 
the  official,  prescribed  college  instruction,  either  by  lec- 
ture or  by  recitation.  They  are  in  reality  college  pro- 
fessors, as  distinguished  from  the  Regius  professors  of 
the  university.  The  reader  who  wishes  to  inform  him- 
self more  fully  may  consult  Mr.  Bristed's  work.  What 
an  American  tutor  is,  we  all  know.  He  is,  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten,  a  very  young  man  without  direct  preparation 
for  his  work  and  without  a  university  vocation.  His 
qualifications  are  only  general,  not  special.  In  this  way. 
Although  our  college  tutors  are  usually  selected  among 
the  most  promising  graduates,  yet,  inasmuch  as  the  col- 
lege curriculum  aims  at  imparting  general  culture  and 
not  special  training,  the  most  promising  graduate  is  not 

*  Not  the  so  called  "  private  tutors,"  who  may  or  may  not  be  Fellows. 


PRI VA  TDOCEN  TEN.  277 

necessarily  qualified  for  teaching  any  one  branch  in  par- 
ticular. His  standing  is  merely  one  of  general  average. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  indeed,  it  happens  only  too  often 
that  a  tutorship  of  mathematics  is  given  to  a  young 
graduate  whose  talents  lie  in  the  direction  of  languages, 
and  vice  versa.  Furthermore,  the  tutors  are  usually 
recent  graduates,  who  have  not  yet  had  time  to  shake  off 
their  undergraduate  ways  of  thinking,  and  to  mature.* 
But  the  sorest  evil  is  the  circumstance  that  the  tutor  has 
not  a  university  vocation.  By  this  I  mean  that  he  does 
not  look  upon  his  tutorship  as  the  introduction  to  a  per- 
manent mode  of  life,  the  stepping  stone  to  a  future  pro- 
fessorship. Imperfectly  trained  as  our  tutors  are  when 
appointed,  if  they  would  only  remain  tutors  with  a  view 
to  becoming  professors,  the  evil  would  work  its  own  cure. 
The  tutor  would  develop  into  a  scholar.  But,  as  is  well 
known,  the  tutorship  is  usually  a  mere  make-shift.  Two  or 
three  of  the  best  men,  say  in  this  year's  class,  are 
straightened  in  means,  or  have  not  yet  decided  upon  their 
future  profession.  They  accept  tutorships,  then,  not 
because  they  regard  college-life  as  their  vocation,  but 
because  they  have  nothing  better  in  prospect  for  the  time 
being.  In  a  year  or  two,  one  of  them  will  abandon  his 
books  and  enter  business.  Another  will  leave  as  soon  as 
he  has  saved  up  money  enough  to  carry  him  through 
the  law  school,  or  the  theological  seminary,  or  the  medical 
school.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  under  such  circumstances 

*  Once  more,  the  reader  must  understand  that  I  have  in  view  the  typical 
American  college.    At  Harvard  and  Yale  the  case  is  somewhat  better. 

24 


278  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

the  tutor's  heart  cannot  be  in  his  work.  He  goes  through 
his  daily  routine  of  recitations  and  draws  his  salary. 
Furthermore,  he  is  not  his  own  master,  he  is  not  free  to 
decide  what  he  shall  teach,  how  he  shall  apportion  his 
time.  He  is  merely  the  executive  officer,  the  lieutenant 
to  carry  out  the  peremptory  orders  of  his  superior  profes- 
sor. If  we  add  to  all  this  the  personal  inconvenience  of 
a  tutorship,  in  which  the  incumbent  has  neither  the  free- 
dom of  a  student  nor  the  dignity  of  a  professor,  but  is 
called  upon  to  do  the  "  dirty  work  "  of  college  disci- 
pline, we  need  not  wonder  that  so  few  really  able  men 
are  willing  to  serve  the  apprenticeship. 

The  Privat-docent,  on  the  other  hand,  moves  in  an 
altogether  different  sphere.  In  the  first  place,  his  work 
as  a  student  is  special,  not  general.  For  three  or  more 
years  he  has  studied  exclusively  either  law,  or  theology, 
or  medicine,  or  philosophy  in  some  one  of  its  numerous 
ramifications.  He  has  taken  his  doctoral  degree  by  pass- 
ing a  rigorous  examination  covering  the  entire  field  of  his 
studies,  and  by  presenting  one  or  more  dissertations  that 
show  his  ability  to  treat  certain  topics  in  an  independent, 
manly  spirit  of  research.  But,  with  all  this,  he  is  not  yet 
a  decent.  The  university  has  not  yet  conferred  upon 
him  the  right  to  teach  others,  the  venias  docendi.  To 
obtain  this,  he  must  qualify  himself  still  further;  he  must 
habilitate  himself  (sich  habilttiren).  He  waits,  therefore, 
a  year  or  two  longer,  pursuing  his  private  studies  with 
energy.  He  then  prepares  and  publishes  an  elaborate 
dissertation.  In  connection  with  this,  he  announces  ten 


PRIVA  TDOCENTEN.  279 

or  twelve  theses,  or  detached  propositions,  which  he  is 
prepared  to  defend  against  all  comers.  The  reader  will 
remember  the  theses  affixed  by  Luther  to  the  door  of  the 
church  at  Wittenberg.  The  public  disputation  is  held  in 
one  of  the  university  rooms.  The  professors  of  the  can- 
didate's faculty  attend.  In  fact,  any  one  can  attend,  and, 
if  he  sees  fit,  can  take  part  in  the  debate.  Ordinarily 
the  disputation  is  a  mere  ceremony.  The  candidate 
stands  on  the  platform,  like  the  knights  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  ready  to  maintain  the  merits  of  his  lady-love. 
His  antagonists  are  his  friends,  who  have  been  instructed 
beforehand  what  to  say.  After  four  or  five  parleys,  each 
lasting  a  few  minutes,  the  antagonists  admit  the  cham- 
pion's superiority,  and  the  dean  pronounces  him  a  true 
and  worthy  knight  of  science.  Occasionally,  however, 
some  one  of  the  theses  is  attacked  in  earnest,  and  then 
the  candidate  must  also  defend  himself  in  earnest.  In 
my  student-days  at  Gottingen  there  was  a  German-Pole, 

one  B ,  a  graduate  of  the  university,  a  rather  learned 

naturalist,  who  had  traveled  extensively.     This  B 

made  a  practice  of  attending  disputations  and  bothering 
the  candidates,  until  he  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  a 
public  nuisance.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  disputa- 
tion is  an  empty  form  to  which  no  weight  is  attached. 
The  real  test  of  the  candidate's  merit  is  his  dissertation, 
which  has  been  read  in  print  beforehand  by  each  member 
of  the  faculty,  and  which  must  be  a  substantial  contribu- 
tion to  knowledge. 

In  some  universities,  I  believe,  the  doctorate  and  the 


280 


GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


venias  docendi  may  coincide.  As  a  specimen  of  an  inau- 
gural dissertation,  I  give  one  defended  by  an  acquaint- 
ance of  mine  at  Marburg,  in  1872.  It  consists  of 
thirty-three  pp.  octavo,  fine  print,  on  the  Evangelium 
Nicodemi  in  the  Literature  of  the  Occident.  The  table  of 
contents  runs  as  follows  : 

I.  The  origin  of  the  evangel.  Nicodemi i 

Versions  A  and  B 4 

I}}   Diffusion  of  the  evangel.  Nicod.  in  the  literature 
of  the  Occident. 

Anglo-Saxon  :  Christ's  Descent  into  Hell 12 

Cynevulf 's  Christ 12 

Christ  and  Satan 12 

Prose  translations 13 

English  :           Prose  and  poetical  versions 18 

Langley,  Piers  Plowman 19 

Fall  and  Passion 20 

Wycliffe 20 

The  Develis  Parlament 21 

^Printed  editions 22 

Lyfe  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea. ...  22 

Celtic  :               Gaelic  version 22 

Pascon  agan  Arluth 23 

French  :            Gregory  of  Tours 23 

Romance  of  the  Grail 24 

Andr6  de  Coutances 25 

Vincentius  Bellovacensis 26 

Prose  translations 27 


PRIVATDOCENTEN.  281 

Printed  editions 28 

Romance  of  Perceforest 28 

Prove nzal :  Metrical  version 29 

Prose  translation 32 

Italian  :  Jacobus  a  Voragine 32 

Dante 33 

Prose  translations 33 

Spanish :            33 

The  following  theses  were  defended  : 

1.  Wright's  opinion  (Chester  Plays,   I.  14,  note),  that 
the  poem,  Harrowing  of  Hell,  is  a  controversial  poem,  is 
incorrect.     //  is  a  drama.    But  there  are  weightier  proofs 
of  this  than  the  proofs  cited  by  Mall  (The  Harrowing  of 
Hell,  Breslau,  1871). 

2.  The  codex  Bodl.  Digby,  86,  fol.  119,  contains  the 
best  ancient  text  of  the  Harrowing  of  Hell.     This  manu- 
script, and  not  the  Brit.  Museum,  Harl.   2,253,  should 
have  been  taken  by  Mall  as  the  basis  for  his  edition. 

3.  Mall's  view  that  the  Extractio  Animarum  ab  Inferno 
of  the  Townely  Mysteries  and  the  Descent  into  Hell  of 
the  Coventry  Plays  are  borrowed  from  or  are  modifica- 
tions of  the  Harrowing  of  Hell,  is  untenable. 

4.  The  more    recent  MS.  of  the  Old-English  poem, 
The  Owl  and  the  Nightingale,  Jesus  Coll.  Ox.,  Arch.  I, 
29,  affords   a  text  approximating  more  to  the  original 
structure  of  the  poem  than    the  older  MS.  Brit.  Mus. 
Cott.  Calig.,  A.  IX. 

5.  Verses  153-187  of  The  Owl  and  the  Nightingale  are 
to  be  assigned  to  the  Nightingale  and  not  to  the  Owl. 


282  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

6.  Germanic  a  has  retained  its  integrity  in  Anglo-Saxon 
only  in  open  syllables. 

7.  It  cannot  be  proved  that  Joseph  of  Arimathea  was 
honored  in  England  as  a  national  saint  prior  to  the  Nor- 
man Conquest.     The  saga  that  Joseph  preached  Chris- 
tianity to  the  English  is,  therefore,  not  of  Celtic  nor  of 
Anglo-Saxon  origin. 

8.  The  Latin  text  of  Q.  Curtius  Rufus  De  gestis  Alex- 
andri  Magni  was  just  as  fragmentary  at  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century  as  it  is  now. 

9.  Alexander  de  Bernay  betrays,  in  his  share  of  the 
Romance  of  Alexander,  traces  of  the  influence  of   the 
Arthurian  romances. 

10.  General  interest  in  the  Alexander  saga  could  have 
been  awakened  only  by  the  crusades. 

11.  Alliteration  had  not  gone  out  of  use  in  England  in 
the  thirteenth  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth 
century.     The  poets  of  the  so  called  Germanic  reaction 
found  it  still  in  existence,  and  merely  purified  and  im- 
proved it. 

12.  The  discrepancy  between  secular  and  spiritual  life, 
between  the  real  and  the  ideal,  which  disorganized  the 
Middle  Ages,  was  also  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the 
decay  of  mediaeval  literature. 

The  university,  in  conferring  upon  one  of  its  graduates 
the  venias  docendi,  puts  itself  under  no  obligation  to  him. 
It  neither  gives  him  a  salary  nor  guarantees  him  hearers. 
It  merely  authorizes  him  to  announce  lectures  in  the 


PRI VA  TDOCENTEN.  2  83 

university  catalogue,  and  to  use  the  university  rooms  for 
such  classes  as  he  may  succeed  in  bringing  together. 
His  lectures  are  entered  by  his  hearers  in  their  Anmel- 
dungsb'ucher,  and  received  as  full  equivalents  in  the  uni- 
versity and  state  curriculum  vitae.  The  university  has 
proclaimed  to  the  world  that  the  docent  is  fully  qualified 
to  teach.  The  only  restriction  laid  upon  him  is  that  he 
shall  not  charge  less  for  a  course  of  lectures  than  the 
amount  fixed  by  the  professors  for  a  like  course  on  the 
same  subject.  The  object  of  this  is  to  prevent  ignoble 
under-bidding.  With  the  discipline  of  the  university  he 
has  no  more  to  do  than  the  professors  have.  He  is 
simply  a  candidate  for  a  professorship,  and  shapes  his  life 
to  suit  his  own  views  and  purposes. 

No  words  of  mine,  I  fear,  will  do  full  justice  to  the  part 
played  in  the  university  by  the  Privatdocenten.  They  are 
the  life-blood  of  the  institution.  Young  men  in  the 
vigor  of  manhood,  ranging  in  age  from  twenty-five  to 
thirty-five,  thoroughly  educated,  purged  of  the  folly  and  the 
aimless  bravado  of  studenthood,  awakened  to  a  sense  of 
life's  responsibilities  but  not  crushed  by  them,  neither  set 
in  their  ways  like  the  older  professors,  they  are  most 
delightful  companions.  You  will  find  them  ready  to  con- 
verse with  you  on  any  and  every  topic,  and  equally  ready 
to  join  you  in  a  walk  or  a  drive  or  a  Kneipe.  They  can 
roll  Kegel  and  talk  Gnostic  philosophy  in  the  same 
breath,  startle  you  with  their  knowledge  of  Sanscrit  roots 
and  their  familiarity  with  university  slang,  but  all  with  a 
quiet,  unassuming,  gentlemanly  air,  a  deference  to  your 


284  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

views,  and  a  liberality  of  culture  that  are  fascinating  to 
the  last  degree.     The  flush  of  manhood  is  in  them,  the 
stirring  consciousness  that  they  are  on  the  high  road  to 
scholarly  fame.     But  they  are  not  so  far  ahead  that  they 
look  upon  the  rest  of  the  world  with  disdain  or  indiffer- 
ence.    Their  days  pass  in  a  quiet  round  of  study.    While 
their  means  are  usually  quite  limited,  their  desires  are 
simple  and  easily  gratified.     It  matters  little  how  a  man 
may  live  or  what  he  may  do,  provided  his  work  be  agree- 
able and  his  surroundings  congenial.     The  Privatdocent 
has  nearly  all  that  goes  to  making  life  pleasant.     The 
professors  treat  him  with  deference,   the  students  look 
up  to  him  with  respect.     He  is  already  becoming,  in  a 
quiet  way,  an  authority  in  the  university  world.     He  has 
for  his  next-door  neighbor   or  his   vis-a-vis  a   brother 
docent,  a  co-worker  in  the  same  line  of  thought,  with 
whom  he  can  hold  familiar  intercourse  in  a  spirit  of 
generous  rivalry.     The  reader  who  wishes  to  view  this 
phase  of  life  in  its  refreshing  simplicity  cannot  do  better 
than  study  the  charming  tableau  presented  by  Gustav 
Freytag  in  his  Lost  Manuscript. 

I  should  give  the  reader  a  very  unfair  impression  of 
professors  and  docents  by  suffering  him  to  infer  that  they 
all  injure  themselves  with  overwork.  On  the  contrary, 
the  first  thing  that  puzzles  the  newly  fledged  student  from 
America  is  the  leisurely,  dole e  far  niente  way  in  which  his 
instructors  seem  to  live.  Not  a  few  labor  unremittingly, 
but  the  majority,  I  am  persuaded,  indulge  in  a  good  deal  of 
recreation.  On  any  fine  day,  from  spring  to  autumn,  one 


PRIVATDOCENTEN.  285 

can  see  professors  with  their  families  out  for  an  airing. 
They  do  not  fail  to  attend  concerts,  balls,  and  the  thea- 
tre. As  for  the  Privatdocenten,  one  stumbles  upon  them 
everywhere  and  at  all  times.  The  secret  of  success  in 
study  is,  in  the  first  place,  to  be  well  trained,  in  the  next 
place,  to  limit  the  field  of  study,  and  finally  to  work  by 
rule.  These  three  elements  are  combined  in  Germany  to 
perfection.  A  German  works  about  as  he  fights ;  he  tries 
to  keep  cool  and  to  avoid  overshooting  the  mark.  What 
cannot  be  done  to-day,  may  be  done  to-morrow,  provided 
one  is  on  the  right  course  and  does  not  desist  altogether. 
A  rest  of  half  a  day  or  even  a  whole  day  does  good 
rather  than  harm.  The  German  university  men  accom- 
plish a  prodigious  amount  of  work,  but  they  do  it  by 
planning  intelligently,  by  carefully  forecasting  ways  and 
means,  by  availing  themselves  of  the  countless  side-helps 
that  each  man  can  get  from  his  co-workers  in  a  land 
where  labor  is  so  minutely  subdivided,  and  by  adding 
here  a  little,  there  a  little,  until  the  whole  becomes 
symmetrical  and  complete  in  all  its  parts.  Viewed  from 
day  to  day,  the  progress  may  seem  slow.  But  if  you  only 
have  the  patience  to  wait  six  months  or  a  year,  you  will 
find  something  grand  in  its  proportions  and  original  in 
its  conception. 

The  office  of  the  Privatdocent,  whatever  it  may  be  in 
theory,  is  in  practice  twofold.  He  mediates  between 
professor  and  student.  He  stimulates  and  helps  his  stu- 
dent-friends by  advising  them  in  their  choice  of  lectures 
and  books,  and  by  mapping  out  their  studies  for  them. 


286  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

He  gives  them  hints  as  to  examination,  or  the  best  way 
of  approaching  professors,  and  also  private  instruction. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  keeps  the  professors  up  to  the 
mark  by  competition.  What  should  we  say  if  the  senior 
professor  of  mathematics  in  some  American  college  con- 
tented himself  with  the  Calculus,  while  his  aspiring  tutor 
announced  in  the  college  catalogue  a  special  course  in 
Quaternions  ?  We  should  say  that  it  looked  as  though 
the  tutor  were  trying  to  steal  the  professor's  thunder,  and 
that  it  could  not  be  tolerated  because  subversive  of  order. 
Yet  this  is  what  every  Privatdocent  does,  or  tries  to  do. 
His  sole  aim  in  life  is  to  cause  himself  to  be  regarded  as 
one  who  knows  quite  as  much  as,  if  not  more  than,  the 
nominal  professor.  No  one  will  assert,  of  course,  that  a 
young  man  of  thirty  or  thirty-five  is  likely  to  be  better 
informed  than  a  professor  who  has  had  the  start  by 
twenty  years  and  more.  Yet  the  mere  effort  to  compete 
does  credit  to  the  Privatdocent.  It  quickens  his  faculties, 
it  gives  point  to  his  studies.  It  does  credit  also  to  the 
German  system.  Under  that  system,  no  professor,  how- 
ever celebrated,  has  a  right  to  rest  from  his  labors,  to  say : 
My  work  is  done,  there  is  nothing  more  to  learn.  The 
university  can  be  imagined  as  arguing  in  this  wise :  We 
shall  become  a  dead  body,  if  new  ideas  be  not  set  forth 
in  our  lecture-rooms  as  fast  as  they  arise.  If  the  profes- 
sor is  not  equal  to  the  task,  here  is  Dr.  So  and  So,  who  is 
evidently  a  man  of  the  times.  Let  us  leave  the  professor 
to  vegetate  in  harmless  indolence,  and  make  the  Dr.  his 
colleague,  else  we  shall  lose  our  students. 


STUDENTS.  287 


IV. 
Students. 

How  shall  one  portray  successfully  in  words  the  linea- 
ments of  that  unique  variety  of  the  human  species  known 
as  the  German  student  ?  Although  myself  a  student  for 
over  three  years,  associating  more  or  less  intimately  with 
my  fellow-students,  I  must  plead  inability  to  do  better 
than  sketch  a  very  imperfect  silhouette.  The  difficulty 
lies  in  the  circumstance  that  there  is  no  analogy  between 
the  German  student  and  the  American  undergraduate, 
nothing  that  can  help  both  the  reader  and  the  writer  to 
make  a  fair  comparison.  The  American  collegian  is  — 
pardon  me  the  expression  —  simply  a  school-boy  of  larger 
growth.  He  may  be  old  enough  to  luxuriate  in  a  mous- 
tache, muscular  enough  to  row  in  the  Saratoga  regatta, 
eloquent  enough  to  carry  off  some  gold  medal,  studious 
enough  to  be  regarded  by  his  associates  as  a  prodigy  of 
learning.  But,  with  all  that,  he  is  none  the  less  a  school- 
boy. From  the  day  of  his  matriculation  to  the  day  of  his 
graduation,  he  is  under  surveillance  more  or  less  in- 
trusive, he  pursues  a  prescribed  routine  of  study,  his 
attendance  is  noted  down,  his  performances  are  graded, 
his  conduct  is  taken  into  the  account,  his  parents  or 
guardians  receive  monthly  or  term  reports.  In  other 
words,  during  the  entire  period  of  four  years  the  collegian 
is  made  to  feel  that  he  is  looked  upon  as  one  incapable 
of  judging  and  acting  for  himself.  His  college  life  is  a 
mere  continuation  of  his  school  life.  The  sphere  is  a 


288  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

trifle  larger,  it  is  true,  the  teachers  are  abler  men,  there  is 
a  greater  variety  of  character  among  his  associates,  yet, 
in  all  substantial  respects,  he  is  still  a  school-boy,  he 
learns  set  tasks.  Whereas  the  German  student  is  the 
direct  opposite.  When  the  young  Primaner  receives 
from  the  gymnasium  his  certificate  of  "  ripeness  "  for  the 
university,  he  knows  that  his  school-boy  days  are  over, 
that  he  has  done  forever  with  lessons,  marks,  grades,  sur- 
veillance, courses  of  instruction.  He  is  a  young  man  free 
to  select  his  studies,  his  professors,  his  rooms,  his  hours 
of  work,  to  regulate  the  entire  course  of  his  life,  to  be 
what  his  own  energy  and  talents  may  make  him.  Possibly 
he  is  not  any  older  than  the  Freshman,  possibly  not  any 
better  prepared  than  if  he  had  just  left  Andover  or  Exeter 
or  the  Boston  Latin  school.  Nevertheless  he  is  an  alto- 
gether different  creature.  The  shaping  of  his  destiny  lies  in 
his  hands,  and  his  alone,  and  he  feels  it.  If  he  succeeds,  the 
merit  is  due  to  himself;  if  he  fails,  he  has  no  one  but  him- 
self to  blame.  He  knows  that  neither  rector  nor  dean 
nor  professors  will  trouble  themselves  about  him,  will 
care  whether  he  attends  regularly  or  "  cuts  "  regularly, 
whether  he  improves  or  wastes  his  time,  whether  he  has  a 
Mensur  every  week,  whether  he  goes  to  bed  sober  or 
intoxicated.  He  is  a  young  man,  and  can  look  after  him- 
self. Should  he  make  himself  obnoxious  by  a  breach  of 
public  order  and  decency,  he  will  be  summoned  before 
the  university  court,  tried  as  every  culprit  is  tried,  accord- 
ing to  the  forms  of  justice,  and  punished  impartially, 
without  favor  and  without  shedding  of  tears. 


STUDENTS.  289 


It  will  be  impossible  to  understand  the  character  of 
the  German  student  without  making  this  element  of  moral 
freedom  and  direct  personal  responsibility  the  starting- 
point  in  our  investigations.  In  no  other  way  shall  we  be 
able  to  account  for  such  extremes  of  lawlessness  on  the 
one  hand,  such  models  of  industry  on  the  other.  Both 
idleness  and  industry  display  an  intensity,  so  to  speak, 
that  we  shall  look  for  in  vain  in  an  American  college. 
The  "  rowers  "  do  nothing  but  row,  the  industrious  do 
nothing  but  study.  Young  Graf  von,  whose  position  in  life 
is  fixed,  whose  allowance  is  ample,  feels  that  he  is  not 
sent  to  the  university  to  study,  but  to  while  away  his 
minority.  What  does  it  matter  to  him,  whether  the  pro- 
fessors are  dull  or  interesting,  whether  the  Pandects  were 
the  work  of  Justinian  or  of  Julius  Caesar  ?  The  Graf  is 
a  man  of  some  education,  perhaps.  A  goodly  amount  of 
Latin  and  Greek  and  mathematics  has  been  drummed 
into  him  at  the  gymnasium  or  the  Ritter-akademie,  But 
he  does  his  best  to  shake  off  the  burden  and  to  enjoy  life, 
after  his  fashion,  with  other  like-minded  young  scions. 
He  becomes  reckless,  and  would  degenerate  into  a  bully 
but  for  one  wholesome  check.  He  has  to  fight.  Side  by 
side  with  the  son  of  the  nobleman  is  the  son  of  the  bour- 
geois, aping  the  follies  of  the  upper  classes,  wasting  his 
father's  hard-earned  gains,  committing  all  sorts  of  ex- 
travagances, yet  sturdy,  clear-headed,  and  hard-fisted. 
Not  more  than  one  Mensur  is  needed  to  teach  the  noble- 
man that  he  is  no  match  for  the  plebeian  in  fighting.  It  is 
the  old  story,  re-told,  of  the  Cavaliers  and  the  Roundheads. 
25 


290  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Nearly  all  the  good  Schlager  in  Gottingen  came  from  the 
middle  and  lower  classes.  The  very  best  one,  I  believe, 
was  the  son  of  a  country  parson.  University  life  has  cer- 
tainly this  one  merit :  it  puts  all  its  members  on  a  footing 
of  perfect  equality.*  Distinctions  of  rank  vanish  on  the 
Mensur  and  in  the  lecture -room.  The  university  court, 
in  its  praise  be  it  said,  knows  no  respect  of  persons.  The 
son  of  the  humblest  barber  or  shop-keeper  will  get 
nothing  less  than  justice,  the  son  of  the  count  or  baron 
nothing  more. 

I  have  said  that  the  "  rowers  "  do  nothing  but  row,  the 
industrious  do  nothing  but  study.  This  is  a  blunt  way 
of  putting  the  antithesis,  and  needs  some  qualifications 
and  restrictions.  Those  who  idle  away  their  time  do  so 
without  fear  and  without  restraint.  Their  attendance  at 
lectures  is  merely  nominal.  In  most  instances,  the  habit 
of  idleness,  once  acquired,  is  not  shaken  off.  But  in 
very  many  instances,  it  is.  To  understand  this  point 
fully,  it  will  be  necessary  to  look  more  closely  into  the 
student's  antecedents.  As  a  general  thing,  the  young 
Fucks  enters  the  university  overworked.  He  has  been 
kept  at  school  for  eight  or  ten  years,  drilled  unmercifully, 
watched  sharply,  and  held  in  strict  subordination.  He 
cannot  obtain  his  certificate  of  "  ripeness  "  until  he  has 
complied  with  all  the  school  requirements.  The  final 
examination  is  conducted  under  the  supervision  of  state 
officials.  All  at  once  the  pressure  is  removed,  he  is  free 

*The  reader  cannot  do  better  than  study,  in  Freytag's  Lost  Manuscript,  the 
spirited  description  of  the  Crown  Prince's  duel,  the  causes  that  led  to  it,  and 
the  results. 


STUDENTS.  291 


to  enter  the  university,  becomes  his  own  master.  The 
first  effect  of  this  newly  acquired  freedom  is  to  unsettle 
him.  He  changes  his  place  of  residence,  forms  new  asso- 
ciations, is  brought  in  contact  with  unwonted  tempta- 
tions. A  new  life  has  dawned  upon  him.  He  hardly 
knows  which  way  to  turn  his  steps,  every  prospect  seems 
so  fair.  He  joins  probably  some  Corps  or  Verbindung, 
thereby  subjecting  himself  to  the  direct  influence  of  men 
more  experienced  than  himself.  It  becomes  his  ambition 
to  rival  them  in  all  that  they  undertake.  His  new  friends 
are  so  agreeable,  the  new  life  is  so  fascinating  in  its  free- 
dom, that  he  glides  along  in  a  round  of  pleasure  and 
excitement.  He  is  undergoing  the  process  called  in 
German  ausrasen,  by  us,  "sowing  wild  oats."  But  if 
there  is  in  him  the  making  of  a  man,  the  dream  will  not 
last  forever.  By  the  end  of  the  first  semester  perhaps, 
and  certainly  by  the  end  of  the  second,  an  awakening 
will  come.  The  Fuchs  is  no  longer  a  Fuchs,  but  a  Bursch. 
He  perceives  that  what  was  once  pleasure  has  begun  to 
pall,  that  he  has  wasted  valuable  time  and  opportunities. 
Yet  his  case  is  not  hopeless.  Energy  and  self-denial  will 
make  the  loss  good.  He, therefore  limits  his  Kneipen  to 
one  evening  a  week,  discards  Fruhschoppen,  attends  lec- 
tures diligently,  turns  a  deaf  ear  to  invitations  for  a  walk 
or  a  drive,  keeps  as  much  as  possible  out  of  the  way  of 
a  challenge,  brushes  the  cobwebs  from  his  books,  and 
begins  hir,  studies  in  earnest.  His  previous  dissipation 
has  served  to  sharpen  his  wits  and  to  give  his  character  a 
somewhat  firmer  set. 


292  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Some  few  students  lose  no  time  at  the  university.  They 
pass  from  their  preliminary  to  their  special  training  with- 
out a  break.  Yet  they  are  less  numerous  than  one  might 
suppose,  and  they  do  not  always  make  the  best  workers 
in  the  long  run.  Taking  the  German  method  of  educa- 
tion just  as  it  is,  we  may  be  tempted  to  regard  Ausrasen 
as  after  all  not  an  unmixed  evil.  The  admission  need  not 
imply  sympathy  with  dueling  and  inordinate  drinking. 
The  question  can  be  put  in  this  shape.  Is  it  not  desira- 
ble that  the  boy  who  has  been  subjected  to  severe  and 
protracted  schooling  should  take  a  year  or  a  half-year  for 
rest  ?  As  Secundaner  and  Primaner  he  has  been  worked 
up  to  his  full  capacity.  He  has  had  scarcely  a  day  outside 
of  the  brief  vacations,  that  he  could  call  his  own.  Before 
taking  up  in  seriousness  his  life-study,  is  it  not  well  in 
him  to  let  his  mind  lie  fallow  a  while  ?  The  shiftlessness, 
the  bravado  that  prevail  among  German  Fuchse  are,  I  am 
persuaded,  nothing  more  than  the  misdirection  of  this 
healthful  instinct  to  snatch  a  brief  respite,  to  look  around 
and  enjoy  life  during  the  interval  between  spells  of  severe 
labor.  The  roll  of  professors  and  docents  of  any  German 
university  will  be  found,  on  examination,  to  contain  the 
name  of  many  a  man  who  was  a  wild  student  in  his  first 
and  second  semester.  The  professions  will  reveal  even  a 
larger  percentage.  No  less  a  man  than  Prince  Bismarck 
himself  was  among  the  wildest  of  the  wild  at  Gottingen 
thirty  years  ago. 

The  German  students  exhibit  such  varfeties  of  charac- 
ter that  it  would  be  useless  to  attempt  to  reduce  them  to 


STUDENTS.  293 


one  category  and  label  them  thus  and  so.  They  have 
only  one  trait  in  common  :  individuality  of  thought  and 
freedom  of  action.  Such  a  sentiment  as  "  class-feeling  " 
does  not  exist  among  them.  In  America,  where  the  same 
set  of  young  men  recite  side  by  side  in  the  same  recita- 
tion-rooms for  four  years,  it  is  perhaps  only  natural  that 
the  feeling  of  class  unity  should  exist  as  it  does.  It  is 
not  in  itself  an  evil,  although  liable  to  grave  perversion. 
Three  fourths  of  the  public  disorder  in  our  colleges  are 
due  to  it  in  one  or  another  shape.  In  Germany,  it 
simply  does  not  exist.  There  are  no  courses  of  study, 
no  classes.  Even  those  who  are  pursuing  the  same 
general  studies  do  not  take  the  same  lectures  in  the 
same  order.  Among  those  who  attended  Herrmann's 
lectures  on  Church  Law  with  myself  were  men  who  had 
heard  the  Pandects  at  Heidelberg,  with  Vangerow,  or  at 
Munich,  with  Windscheid,  or  at  Leipsic,  with  Wachter. 
Nearly  every  German  student  changes  his  university 
once,  many  of  them  more  than  once.  Comparatively  few 
pass  their  entire  triennium  or  quadrennium  in  the  same 
place.  This  is  not  mere  vagrancy.  It  arises  from  the' 
laudable  desire  to  hear  the  best  men  in  each  department. 
Its  effect  is  also  beneficial.  It  gives  breadth  and  variety 
of  culture.  The  South  German,  by  removing  to  Gottin- 
gen  or  Bonn  or  Berlin,  shakes  off  his  superfluity  of  broad 
good-nature,  becomes  less  garrulous  and  more  earnest. 
The  Prussian  or  Hanoverian  at  Heidelberg  or  Tubingen, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  toned  down  and  softened  by  the 
charms  of  southern  Gemuthlichkeit. 


294  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

The  student  lives  by  himself  and  selects  his  com- 
panions according  to  his  own  taste.  Even  if  he  is  not  a 
member  of  a  Corps  or  a  Verbindung,  he  belongs  to  some 
less  formal  association  that  holds  its  meetings  regularly. 
The  members  are  not  necessarily  of  the  same  faculty ; 
one  may  be  a  chemist,  another  a  philologian,  another  a 
jurist.  The  only  bond  of  union  is  that  of  congeniality. 
There  are  no  literary  clubs,*  no  debating  societies  among 
the  students.  Reunions  are  for  social  pleasure,  not 
for  work ;  still  less  for  mere  displays  of  questionable  elo- 
quence. Study  is  something  that  each  man  is  supposed 
to  attend  to  in  the  seclusion  of  his  own  room.  When  he 
meets  his  friends,  he  lays  aside  "shop."  Politics,  in  the 
English  and  American  use  of  the  word,  are  unknown  in 
the  German  university.  The  time  when  the  students 
were  political  conspirators  has  gone  by,  the  time  when 
they  may  take  a  part  in  the  liberal  discussion  of  political 
questions  of  the  day  has  not  yet  arrived.  Perhaps  it  will  » 
never  arrive.  What  prompted  the  conspiracies  and  insur- 
rections among  the  students  during  the  period  of  the 
Reaction  was  a  sense  of  the  gross  injustice  and  glaring 
incompetency  of  the  Metternichian  era,  rather  than  a 
deep-seated  preference  for  a  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment or  a  clear  perception  of  the  ways  and  means  of 
reform.  The  Germans  as  a  nation  do  not  take  an  absorb- 
ing interest  in  political  questions.  Now  that  the  petty 
miskre  of  the  old  Confederation  has  been  swept  away,  and 

*  There  were  literary  clubs  at  one  time,  e.  g.,  the  celebrated  Gtfttingen 
Hainbund^  but  they  seem  to  have  gone  out  of  fashion. 


STUDENTS.  295 


the  country  placed  under  the  control  of  one  permanent 
dynasty,  the  Germans  are  satisfied  to  let  well  enough 
alone.  The  only  subject  that  is  in  the  least  degree  likely 
to  arouse  them  is  the  conflict  between  Church  and  State. 
Yet  even  this  important  issue  cannot  be  said  to  have 
agitated  the  students,  and  for  a  very  obvious  reason. 
They  all  think  alike  on  the  point.  The  students,  Catho- 
lic no  less  than  Protestant,  are  liberals.  The  Ultramon- 
tanes  do  not  attend  the  universities,  even  the  paritetic 
and  purely  Catholic  universities,  in  numbers,  for  they  feel 
that  the  general  tendency  of  higher  education  is  against 
them.  The  reader  will  remember  that  the  leaders  of  the 
Old-Catholic  movement  in  South  Germany  are  the  mem- 
bers of  the  theological  faculty  of  Munich.  The  priests 
of  the  Catholic  church  are,  at  least  have  been  until  now, 
educated  at  the  so  called  convicta  and  seminaries,  rather 
than  at  the  gymnasiums  and  universities.  Indeed,  the 
express  object  of  the  recently  adopted  Church  Laws  in 
Prussia  is  to  force  all  candidates  for  orders  into  the 
gymnasium  and  university.  Those  laws  provide  that 
henceforth  no  one  shall  be  admitted  to  orders  or  receive 
a  parochial  charge  who  has  not  passed  through  the  full 
gymnasial  and  university  course.  The  influence  of  uni- 
versity life  is  so  liberalizing  that  the  Ultramontane  party 
meets  with  little  favor  from  students,  even  from  those  of 
the  Catholic  faith.  The  young  man  who  is  made  to  feel 
every  day  for  upwards  of  three  years  of  his  life  that  he 
must  weigh  all  things  and  judge  for  himself,  will  not  be 
apt  to  fall  on  his  knees  before  the  dogma  of  infallibility. 


296  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

I  have  heard  the  most  conflicting  opinions  expressed 
by  Americans  as  to  the  intellectual  ability  of  German 
students.  It  is  not,  under  any  circumstances,  an  easy 
matter  to  gauge  with  exactness  the  capacities  of  a  class 
of  young  men  numbering  many  thousands.  One  is  liable 
to  blunder  by  attempting  to  generalize  from  the  imper- 
fect data  furnished  by  the  very  few  with  whom  one  may 
come  in  direct  contact.  The  difficulty  is  increased, 
moreover,  by  the  circumstance  that  the  German  mode  of 
study  affords  so  few  opportunities  for  testing  merit. 
Under  the  American  system,  where  each  student  recites 
in  public  from  day  to  day  for  years,  both  his  fellow-stu- 
dents and  his  professors  know  perfectly  well  what  he  is 
capable  of.  Whereas,  in  Germany,  the  most  promising 
scholars  may  pass  unnoticed  amid  the  crowd  of  listeners. 
There  is  absolutely  but  one  way  of  eliciting  information, 
namely,  through  personal  intercourse,  and  that  way  is, 
from  its  very  nature,  limited  and  imperfect. 

In  the  first  place,  the  German  student  is  older  than 
the  American.  The  average  age  of  admission  of  this 
year's  graduating  class  at  Yale  was  eighteen.  This  is  for 
America  a  high  average.  The  German  rarely  attends  the 
university  before  his  twentieth  year.  Many  students  are 
even  older.  In  the  next  place,  the  German  is  much  more 
thoroughly  trained.  On  this  point,  I  must  beg  the  reader 
to  dismiss  all  prejudice  and  look  the  facts  full  in  the  face. 
That  we  have  a  few  good  schools,  is  a  truism  which 
nobody  will  deny.  But  that  we  have  not  any  thing  like 
a  school-system,  by  virtue  of  which  all  young  men, 


STUDENTS.  297 

wherever  they  may  live,  can  be  trained  for  their  higher 
education,  is  equally  true.  I  except  the  eastern  part  of 
Massachusetts,  where  wealth  and  intelligence  are  so 
diffused  that  almost  every  district  has  an  excellent  pre- 
paratory school.  But  where,  I  venture  to  ask,  outside  of 
the  eastern  part  of  Massachusetts  shall  we  find  the  match 
for  a  German  gymnasium  ?  Is  there  in  the  entire  State 
of  New  York  a  single  school,  public  or  private,  that  can 
show  a  programme  like  the  following  : 

Religion:  a.  Catholic.  Martin's  Manual,  The  Church 
and  Her  History,  b.  Protestant.  Bek's  Exposition  of 
the  Book  of  Acts. 

Latin  :  Cicero's  Catiline  Orations,  1-4,  pro  Milone,  pro 
Ligario  ;  Virgil's  ^Eneid,  Books  3,  5  and  6,  and  parts  of 
9  and  10 ;  Cicero's  Tusculan  Disput. ;  Tacitus,  Book 
3,  and  parts  of  2  and  4 ;  Horace,  Odes,  Books  3  and  4 ; 
Epistles,  Book  i ;  Satires,  Book  i. 

Greek :  Xenophon's  Anabasis,  Book  7 ;  Herodotus, 
Schnitzer's  Chrestomathy ;  Homer,  Odyssey,  i,  2,  15,  16, 
17, 18,  parts  of  20,  21,  22  ;  Sophocles,  Antigone ;  Demos- 
thenes, 1-3  Olynthiacs;  Philippics,  i;  Iliad,  7,  9,  21, 
22,  24;  Plato's  Apology  and  Crito. 

Hebrew:  Grammar,  Mezger's  Exercises;  Gesenius' 
Syntax ;  Psalms ;  Isaiah. 

French :  Syntax,  according  to  Eisenmann ;  Grauer's 
Chrestomathy. 

English  :  Gantler's  Chrestomathy ;  Shakespeare's  Julius 
Caesar. 

German:  History  of  Old   and   Mediaeval   Literature, 


298  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

with  Scholl's  Specimens ;  Nibelungenlied  ;  Grammar  of 
Middle  High  German;  Schiller's  Wallenstein  read  and 
explained. 

History :  Pu'tz,  Roman  History ;  Piitz,  Middle  Ages. 

Physical  Geography. 

Chemistry :  Metalloids  and  Metals. 

Physics :  Brettner's  Manual. 

Natural  History:  Mineralogy  and  Geology;  Soma- 
tology  and  Anthropology. 

Mathematics :  Quadratic  Equations ;  Diaphantic  Equa- 
tions; Arithmetical  and  Geometrical  Progression;  Ge- 
ometry. 

Archeology:  Homerica;  Greek  and  Roman  Antiqui- 
ties. 

Mythology :  Stoll's  Greek  and  Roman  Mythology. 

Philosophy :  Psychology  and  Logic. 

Perhaps  the  reader  thinks  that  this  must  be  some 
"  crack  "  school  in  Berlin  or  Leipsic.  Not  at  all.  It  is  the 
programme  for  the  gymnasium  of  a  town  of  which  he  has, 
in  all  probability,  never  heard.  If  he  consults  his  Gazet- 
teer, he  will  find  that  Ellwangen  is  a  small  town  in  Wiirt- 
temberg,  forty-five  miles  N.  E.  of  Stuttgart.  Population, 
in  1857,  3,000.  At  the  present  day,  probably  5,000.  Yet 
we  find  this  obscure  Franconian  town,  off  the  highroad 
of  commerce  and  culture,  giving  its  children  the  best  of 
training.  I  have  quoted  the  programme  only  for  the 
upper  classes  of  the  gymnasium  proper,  and  have  omitted 
the  Realclassen. 

As  an  offset,  let  me  submit  the  following  programme 


STUDENTS.  299 

from  North  Germany.  As  Prussia  is  the  centre  of  Ger- 
many, so  Brandenburg  is  the  centre  of  Prussia.  In  the 
Prima  of  the  Ritter-Akademie  of  Brandenburg  were  pur- 
sued, during  the  year  ending  Easter,  1872,  the  following 
studies. 

Religion,  2  hours  a  week.  Gospel  of  St.  John,  in  the 
original.  History  of  the  Mediaeval  Church.  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians,  in  the  original.  History  of  the  Modern 
Churches. 

German,  3  h.  Themes.  R6sum6  of  German  national 
literature  from  Opitz  to  Lessing.  Also,  reading  of  Rich- 
ard II.  and  Macbeth.  Exercises  in  Logic. 

Latin,  8  h.  Cicero  pro  Plancio.  (In  private,  Quin- 
tilian  X).  Tacitus,  Annal.  XH-XV.  Exercises  and 
Themes.  Extemporalia.  Horace,  Odes  Bk.  II.  and  III. 
Selected  Satires  and  Epistles.  10-12  Odes  memorized. 

Greek,  6  h.  Sophocles,  Electra.  Thucydides  II,  1-64. 
(In  private,  Homer).  Plato,  Protagoras.  (In  private, 
Thucydides,  IV).  Exercises  and  extemporalia. 

Hebrew,  2  h.  Selections  from  Psalms  and  Samuel. 
Hebrew  doctrine  of  forms,  entire,  according  to  Gese- 
nius.  Selections  from  the  Snytax. 

'French,  3  h.  Review  of  Grammar.  Oral  translations 
into  French,  from  Ploetz'  Exercises.  Bazancourt's  Cri- 
mean Expedition  read. 

History,  3  h.  Review  of  Ancient  History.  History 
of  the  World  from  1715-1789. 

Mathematics,  4  h.     Trigonometry  and  Stereometry. 

Physics,  2  h.     Mechanics.  Electricity,  and  Magnetism. 


300  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

The  final  examination  at  the  gymnasium  consists  of 
oral  and  written  reviews  (the  examination  proper),  and 
of  themes  prepared  at  home.  I  give  specimens  of  the 
themes  set  by  the  Ritter-Akademie. 

German.  What  are  the  permanent  merits  of  Klopstock 
in  German  Literature  ? 

Latin.  Quam  fuerit  funestum  cum  ceteris  Graeciac  civi- 
tatibus  turn  Atheniensibus  bellum  Peloponnesiacum  argttmen- 
tis  comprobetur. 

Mathematics.  By  revolving  an  isosceles  triangle  and 
the  inscribed  circle,  you  produce  a  cone  and  a  sphere. 
What  are  the  proportions  of  the  two  bodies  in  respect  to 
their  superficial  area  and  their  solid  contents  ? 

A  few  words  of  explanation  are  needed.  Hebrew  is 
obligatory  only  upon  those  who  intend  to  study  theology. 
By  extemporalia  are  meant  extempore  translations  made 
during  the  school-hour.  The  teacher  reads  aloud  from 
some  German  work,  and  the  pupils  translate  as  well  as 
they  can  into  Latin,  without  the  aid  of  grammar  or 
dictionary. 

~Bj  privattm  reading  is  meant  this.  The  teacher  assigns 
to  the  pupil  portions  of  a  certain  classic  author,  to  be 
read  at  home  but  not  recited  upon  in  school. 

Neither  the  gymnasium  at  Ellwangen  nor  the  Ritter- 
Akademie  of  Brandenburg  can  be  regarded  as  occupying 
the  foremost  rank  among  German  schools.  The  gym- 
nasiums at  Berlin,  Cologne,  Leipsic,  Frankfort,  and  the 
other  large  cities,  and  the  celebrated  institution  at 
Schulpforta  are  superior  in  the  quality  of  their  teachers 


STUDENTS. 


3°. 


and  their  pupils.  The  Ritter-Akademie,  as  the  catalogue 
shows,  is  a  school  for  the  Brandenburg  nobility. 

In  1863,  when  the  population  of  Prussia  (before  the 
annexation  of  Hanover  and  Hesse-Cassel)  was  18,000,000, 
i.  e.,  less  than  half  the  German  Empire,  there  were  172 
gymnasiums  in  Prussia,  giving  instruction  to  45,000 
pupils,  and  83  Realschulen,  giving  instruction  to  20,000 
pupils.  The  difference  between  the  gymnasium  and  the 
Realschule  is  that  the  latter  teaches  less  Latin  and  com- 
paratively little  Greek,  but  goes  deeper  into  history, 
modern  languages,  mathematics,  and  the  natural  sciences. 
I  have  no  recent  statistics  in  my  possession,  but  I  shall 
probably  not  go  very  wide  of  the  mark  in  stating  that  in 
the  German  Empire  of  to-day  there  are  between  five  and 
six  hundred  schools  of  the  first  order,  instructing  nearly 
150,000  pupils  on  what  Matthew  Arnold  has  called  so 
happily  "  the  higher  plane  "  of  education. 

At  Ellwangen  there  were  forty-five  pupils  pursuing  the 
studies  that  I  have  mentioned.  These  pupils  were  taught 
by  eight  instructors.  In  the  Prima  of  the  Ritter-Akademie 
there  were  nineteen  pupils  taught  by  five  instructors. 
These  figures  show  clearly  that  the  German  system  is  one 
of  small  classes,  where  the  instruction  can  be  brought 
home  to  the  pupil. 

Finally,  there  is  an  additional  feature  in  the  German 
school  system  which  has  been  overlooked  even  by  so 
careful  an  observer  as  Matthew  Arnold.  I  allude  to  the 
circumstance  that  a  German  seldom  changes  his  school. 
He  is  kept  at  the  same  institution  from  his  tenth  or  even 

26 


302  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

*• 

his  eighth  year  to  his  twentieth.  He  has  a  chance  to 
master  one  set  of  text-books  thoroughly,  to  advance 
regularly,  year  by  year,  in  carefully  measured  progression. 
He  wastes  no  time  by  sudden  changes  either  of  books  or 
of  teachers.  Besides,  even  should  a  boy  be  transferred 
from  one  gymnasium  to  another,  he  would  find  in  his 
new  school  the  same  quality  of  instruction  and  a  similar 
corps  of  instructors. 

It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  this  work  to 
exhaust  the  subject  of  German  schools.  The  reader  who 
wishes  to  inform  himself  more  thoroughly  may  consult 
Matthew  Arnold's  treatise.  I  touch  upon  the  schools 
only  as  they  influence  the  universities,  in  the  endeavor  to 
make  the  reader  appreciate  more  accurately  the  differ- 
ence between  the  American  undergraduate  and  the 
German  student.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  no  amount  of 
system  will  atone  for  want  of  brains.  Many  a  young  man 
who  has  been  pushed  through  the  gymnasium  by  the  aid 
of  persistent  and  kindly  disposed  teachers  will  drop  as 
soon  as  the  momentum  is  spent.  Sluggish,  inert  in  him- 
self, he  becomes  at  the  university  a  mere  dawdler.  His 
thin  plating  of  knowledge  wears  off  little  by  little,  until 
the  ignoble  metal  beneath  appears  in  all  its  worthless- 
ness,  and  you  wonder  how  any  such  fellow  could  evei 
have  been  pronounced  fit  for  a  university.  Yet  is  Ger- 
many the  only  country  in  the  world  that  exhibits  this 
phenomenon  of  running  to  seed  ?  Does  not  every  Ameri- 
can college  graduate  men  who  know  actually  less  than 
they  did  on  entering  ? 


STUDENTS.  303 


The  only  just  way  of  comparing  two  systems  is  to 
take  them  at  points  widely  apart.  The  idler  of  Germany, 
I  am  confident,  has  forgotten  twice  as  much  as  the  idler 
of  America,  the  industrious  student  knows  twice  as  much 
as  the  industrious  undergraduate,  and  the  future  scholar 
of  Germany  is  a  man  of  whom  we  in  America  have  no 
conception.  He  is  a  man  who  could  not  exist  under  our 
system,  he  would  be  choked  by  recitations  and  grades. 
What  h«  studies,  he  studies  with  the  devotion  of  a  poet 
and  the  trained  skill  of  a  scientist.  The  idea  of  compet- 
ing, of  putting  forth  all  his  energies  in  a  trial  of  skill  after 
the  fashion  of  the  English  university  examination,  has 
never  occurred  to  him.  He  studies  to  learn,  to  master 
what  has  been  done  before  him,  and  to  contribute  if  pos- 
sible to  the  growth  of  knowledge.  He  reads  with  a  view 
to  permanent  results,  not  to  examinations.  To  justify 
these  assertions,  it  will  be  necessary  to  define  more  pre- 
cisely what  I  mean  by  "knowledge."  Life  in  Germany 
is  not  so  free  as  in  America.  It  presents  fewer  elements 
of  excitement,  moves  rather  in  a  prescribed  routine.  It 
does  not  exhibit  a  like  frantic  haste  after  fame  and 
wealth.  The  newspaper  press,  vegetating  rather  than 
flourishing  under  humdrum  circumstances,  is  deficient 
in  everything  that  we  call  enterprise.  Any  one  of  our 
great  dailies  gives  its  readers  more  and  better  reading 
than  the  entire  press  of  Berlin.  The  Germans  do  not 
look  upon  their  newspapers  as  daily  pabulum.  The  Ger- 
man boy,  although  well  informed,  grows  up  in  compara- 
tive ignorance  of  the  great  social  and  political  movements 


304  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

around  him.  He  knows  much  less  of  the  world,  his  mind 
is  not  stocked  with  scraps  of  news  gathered  from  papers 
and  magazines.  The  American  boy,  to  use  an  Ameri- 
canism, is  much  more  wide-awake.  He  can  tell  you 
what  has  happened  yesterday  in  China  or  Africa,  what  is 
likely  to  happen  to-morrow  in  South  America.  Yet  we 
can  scarcely  call  this  knowledge,  in  the  highest  sense  of 
the  term.  It  is  rather  allotria,  the  unsifted,  unarranged, 
undigested  materials  of  knowledge.  What  the  German 
gymnasiast  knows  at  all,  he  knows  well,  because  he  knows 
it  as  an  item  of  general  training,  and  in  its  relations  to 
other  things.  For  instance,  although  Germany  and  France 
are  next-door  neighbors,  the  gymnasiast  does  not  watch 
from  day  to  day,  from  month  to  month,  the  political  con- 
vulsions at  Paris  and  Versailles.  Yet  he  has  probably 
read  with  a  good  deal  of  care  the  history  of  France  from 
its  origin,  and  is  in  a  position  to  form  a  correct  judgment 
as  to  what  these  convulsions  really  betoken.  If  you  lay 
before  him  the  events  as  they  transpire  from  time  to  time, 
he  will  understand  them,  because  he  will  view  them  as  the 
present  out-cropping  of  forces  which  he  has  traced  in 
their  operation  for  centuries. 

By  way  of  presenting  the  average  German  student 
more  in  the  concrete,  I  take  the  liberty  of  drawing  the 
portrait  of  the  one  whom  I  knew  best.  He  came  from  a 
small  town  in  the  Hartz  mountains,  a  town  almost  identi- 
cal in  size  and  general  character  with  Ellwangen.  My 

friend  H ,  who  was  my  teacher  in  German  and  also 

for  a  while  in  Latin  and  Greek,  was  a  young  man  of 


STUDENTS.  305 


twenty-three  or  twenty-four,  tall,  large  of  frame  but  not 
muscular,  and  in  excellent  health.  His  spirits  were  in- 
variably good.  He  was  a  thorough  Latin  and  Greek 
scholar.  I  was  particularly  struck  with  his  proficiency  in 
writing  Greek.  He  wrote  it  very  rapidly,  in  an  easy, 
current  hand,  using  abbreviations  not  unlike  the  ligatures 
in  the  editions  of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  short,  he  had 
a  Greek  hand,  and  did  not  print  each  letter  separately  as 
an  American  does.  He  filled  in  the  accents  after  writing, 
as  an  American  or  Englishman  crosses  his  /  's  and  dots 
his  i's.  He  seemed  to  have  the  entire  Greek  grammar  as 
well  as  the  Latin  at  his  tongue's  end,  he  was  never  at  a 
loss  for  rule  and  exception.  He  had  studied  Hebrew 
enough  at  the  gymnasium  to  be  able  to  read  the  Old 
Testament  with  the  vowel  points.  He  had  also  studied 
Sanscrit  under  Benfey  at  the  university,  and  could  read 
the  epic  poetry  with  fluency.  In  addition  to  this,  he  was 
a  fair  scholar  in  mediaeval  German,  and  was  well  versed 
in  ancient  and  mediaeval  history.  To  crown  all,  he  was 
an  excellent  pianist,  sang  well,  and  could  drink  his  five 
Schoppen  of  beer  every  evening  and  rise  to  his  work  the 
next  morning  as  fresh  as  though  he  had  gone  to  bed  fast- 
ing. He  was  by  no  means  a  book-worm,  but  enjoyed 
life  as  it  passed.  For  the  subject  of  his  doctoral  disser- 
tation he  selected  the  Greek  of  Euripedes.  As  the  classic 
student  will  know,  the  texts  of  this  author  have  come  to 
us  in  a  very  corrupt  state.  My  friend,  not  content  with 
studying  the  texts  themselves,  employed  his  leisure  time 
for  an  entire  semester  in  collating  stray  fragments  of 
*26 


306  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES, 

the  great  dramatist  scattered  through  the  writings  of 
other  authors,  and  especially  the  quotations  contained  in 
patristic  Greek.  Although  not  competent  to  venture  an 

opinion  on  such  a  subject,  I  have  no  doubt  that  H 

made  a  very  exhaustive  and  scholarly  dissertation.  Yet 
he  was  not  a  "first-rate."  I  have  known  more  than  one 
student  who  was  decidedly  his  superior  in  breadth  of 
learning  and  grasp  of  intellect.  Graded  after  the  Ameri- 
can fashion,  he  would  have  ranked  as  tenth  in  a  class  of 
one  hundred.  He  was  a  man,  not  of  genius,  but  of  talent 
and  industry,  one  who  has  profited  by  his  opportunities 
without  foregoing  the  minor  pleasures  of  society.  From 
this  class  of  students  Germany  recruits  her  gymnasium 
teachers. 

Pe  haps  the  reader  would  like  to  know  what  I  mean 
by  a  "  first-rate."  In  my  third  semester  I  became  ac- 
quainted with  a  young  Dr.  B ,  who  had  been  out  of 

the  university  three  years.  He  was  then  barely  in  his 
twenty-sixth  year.  In  addition  to  his  uncommon  attain- 
ments in  Greek  and  Latin,  he  had  passed  a  year  in 
France,  and  two  years  in  England.  He  spoke  English 
and  French  with  perfect  fluency  and  precision,  and  could 
maintain  a  conversation  in  Italian  and  Spanish.  He  was 
a  favorite  pupil  of  Ewald  in  Persian,  Hebrew  and  Arabic, 
and,  as  Benfey  assured  me,  was  the  most  promising  young 
Sanscrit  scholar  of  Germany.  Soon  after  I  made  his 
acquaintance,  he  was  appointed  professor  of  Oriental 
Languages  at  Queen's  College,  Bombay,  through  the  influ- 
ence of  Max  Miiller.  In  less  than  a  year  after  entering 


• 

STUDENTS.  307 


upon  the  duties  of  his  professorship,  he  inaugurated  the 
publication  of  a  long  and  carefully  edited  series  of  valu- 
able Sanscrit  texts.  He  was,  in  all  respects,  what  we  call 
a  "driver,"  a  man  who  knows  no  rest. 

If  opinions  differ  concerning  the  intellectual  ability  of 
German  students,  they  differ  even  more  widely  concern- 
ing their  manners.  On  this  point,  I  am  disposed  to 
accuse  my  countrymen  of  a  touch  of  prejudice.  Disap- 
pointed in  not  finding  the  German  student  the  exact 
counterpart  of  themselves,  they  are  averse  to  associating 
with  him  freely.  They  overlook  the  circumstance  that 
student-life  is  emphatically  the  period  of  fermentation, 
that  the  scum  and  froth  now  on  the  surface  will  soon  dis- 
appear, leaving  the  clear,  sparkling  wine.  German  ways 
are  not  our  ways.  Many  things  that  we  look  upon  as 
indispensable  in  the  deportment  of  a  gentleman  are  sec- 
ondary matters  to  a  German,  while  he  on  the  other  hand 
views  with  disfavor  much  that  we  regard  as  permissible. 
Intercourse  between  the  German  and  the  American 
becomes,  then,  a  question  of  mutual  forbearance.  Each 
party  has  to  make  some  concession,  and  the  German  — 
to  his  credit  be  it  confessed  —  is  the  readier  of  the  two 
to  waive  a  portion  at  least  of  his  prejudices. 

For  one,  I  never  had  any  trouble  in  dealing  with  my 
fellow-students.  If,  in  returning  to  my  room  in  the  eve- 
ning, I  was  met  by  a  party  of  "  rowers  "  bent  on  picking 
a  quarrel,  I  had  only  to  intimate  my  nationality  to  pass 
unmolested.  In  fact,  even  that  was  not  usually  neces- 
sary. In  a  small  university  town,  like  Gottingen,  foreign- 


308  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

ers  become  known  as  such.  Not  infrequently  I  have 
heard  one  man  soberer  than  his  companions  say :  "  O, 
pshaw  !  That's  an  American.  What's  the  use  of  wasting 
words  on  him."  Yet  that  was  German  student-life  at  his 
worst.  In  the  ordinary  intercourse  at  public  dining 
tables  and  in  the  lecture-rooms,  I  have  always  found  the 
same  ceremonial  politeness  that  men  of  the  world  show 
to  one  another.  The  men  with  whom  I  read  the  Insti- 
tutes of  Gaius  and  of  Justinian  were  Corps  students ;  my 
associates  in  Dr.  Maxen's  Exegeticum  were  Wilde.  The 
one  set  was  fully  as  agreeable  as  the  other.  In  fact,  the 
Corps  students  were  a  trifle  more  easy  and  genial  in  their 
manners.  One  who  is  desirous  of  making  acquaintances 
will  have  no  difficulty.  He  will  find  many  bright  young 
fellows,  well  educated,  limited  in  their  means,  thoroughly 
in  earnest  with  their  studies,  but  affable  and  entertaining, 
out-spoken  in  their  opinions,  somewhat  positive,  but  not 
apt  to  give  or  to  take  offense.  In  one  respect  they  differ 
from  young  Americans.  They  do  not  indulge  in  sportive 
demonstrations  of  familiarity.  Even  Dutzbruder  do  not 
slap  one  another  on  the  back.  The  student,  indeed  the 
German  in  general,  seems  to  have  adopted  the  motto, 
Noli  me  tangere.  Even  one  who  is  brusque  in  his  man- 
ner, not  to  say  uncouth,  will  never  presume  upon  per- 
sonal liberties.  This,  I  suspect,  is  the  result  of  the  indi- 
viduality engendered  by  culture.  However  intimate 
men  may  be,  each  seeks  to  maintain  his  individuality. 
Much  that  we  regard  as  "  fun  "  would  be  looked  upon  by 
the  German  as  an  unpardonable  want  of  dignity  and  self- 


STUDENTS.  309 

respect.  The  student  wishes  to  be  just  what  he  is,  and 
will  not  give  up  an  iota  of  his  idiosyncracies  for  the  dear- 
est friend  on  earth.  You  may  argue  earnestly,  even 
heatedly  with  him ;  that  is  only  manly.  But  you  cannot 
venture  to  ridicule  him,  for  that  would  be  assuming  supe- 
riority and  treating  him  as  a  boy. 

The  cardinal  sin  of  the  students  is  excess  in  drinking. 
They  all  drink,  and  nearly  all  drink  too  much.  Yet  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  vice  is  not  confined  to 
the  students.  Germany  is  preeminently  a  land  of  free 
living.  Everybody  drinks  as  a  matter  of  course.  The 
students  merely  push  the  custom  to  an  extreme,  by  their 
Saufcomment.  On  the  other  hand,  what  they  drink  is 
much  less  injurious  to  health  than  the  gin  and  whisky 
of  America.  Although  beer  and  wine  produce  temporary 
intoxication,  they  do  not  waste  the  tissues  and  nervous 
energy.  Many  a  man  who  has  kneiped  persistently 
through  his  university  course,  and  barely  passed  the 
state-examination,  settles  down  into  an  orderly,  sober 
citizen.  Germany  is  a  land  of  drinking,  but,  paradoxical 
as  it  may  seem,  it  is  not  a  lanrd  of  drunkards.  The 
average  American  village  can  exhibit  more  hopeless 
sots,  men  saturated  to  the  core  and  reeking  with  alco- 
holic fumes,  than  are  to  be  found  in  a  large  German  city, 
like  Hanover  or  Leipsic. 

Much,  if  not  all,  that  is  crude,  chaotic,  absurd,  repell- 
ant  in  the  student's  composition  will  disappear  in  the 
course  of  time.  I  rest  this  belief  upon  the  teachings  of 
history.  Not  farther  back  than  fifty  or  sixty  years,  the 


310  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

student  was  indeed  a  lawless  creature.  Who  has  not 
heard  of  the  madcap  revelries,  the  follies  and  Reign  oi 
Terror  of  the  Jenensians  ?  Greatly  as  the  dukes  of  Wei- 
mar loved  and  favored  their  university,  they  were  forced 
to  put  down  more  than  one  outbreak  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet  and  sabre.  In  the  last  century,  the  students  of 
Jena  not  infrequently  fought  their  duels  in  the  open  air, 
on  a  platform  in  the  market  place  in  front  of  the  town- 
hall.  Intoxicated  students  reeled  through  the  streets  at 
all  hours,  insulting  peasants  and  women,  lording  it  over 
the  Philistine.  The  history  of  the  universities  through- 
out the  eighteenth,  seventeenth,  sixteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  is  a  record  of  violence,  bloodshed,  and  de- 
bauch. The  country  itself  was  in  a  state  of  transition. :> 
The  Reformation  had  emancipated  the  German  spirit 
from  the  shackles  of  tradition,  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
turned  brother  against  brother,  land  against  land.  The 
dreary  epoch  of  Pennalismus^  an  elaborate  system  of  fag- 
ging, set  in.  Letters  and  breeding  seemed  to  have 
passed  from  the  memory  of  men.  From  1648  to  1749, 
the  year  of  Goethe's  birth,  the  country  lay  prostrate,  ex- 
hausted, as  one  dead.  When  the  revival  came  under 
Bodmer  and  Breitinger,  Lessing,  Goethe,  Herder  and 
Schiller,  there  came  with  it  the  French  Revolution,  the 
Storm  and  Stress  period,  and  later  still  the  era  of  Roman- 
ticism and  the  Reaction.  The  nation  revived,  but  not 
without  many  a  racking  birth-throe.  It  had  no  peace, 
either  in  politics  or  in  philosophy.  System  after  system 
rose  and  fell,  Leibnitz,  Thomasius,  Spinoza,  Kant,  Schell- 


STUDENTS.  311 


ing,  Hegel,  Fichte  swept  across  the  German  mind,  as  the 
Swedes,  French,  Croats,  Russians,  Cossacks,  Italians, 
English  swept  over  the  country.  It  was  not  until  the 
July  Revolution  and  the  death  of  Goethe,  in  round  num- 
bers the  year  1830,  that  Germany  caught  the  first  glim- 
merings of  the  dawn  of  material  prosperity  and  national 
stability.  Is  it  surprising,  then,  that  the  students  should 
have  been  in  sympathy  with  the  state  of  their  country, 
should  have  exhibited  in  their  action  and  sentiments 
every  phase  from  imbecile  pedantry  to  heaven-defying 
Titanism  ?  The  student  of  to-day,  as  I  have  said  on  a 
previous  occasion,  is  not  the  student  of  1830,  or  of  1800; 
neither  is  he  the  student  of  1900.  With  increase  of 
wealth  and  the  consciousness  of  belonging  to  the  fore- 
most political  power  in  Europe,  will  also  come  a  keener 
appreciation  of  the  axiom,  noblesse  oblige.  Many  things 
tolerable,  permissible  in  the  subjects  of  a.  second-rate 
power  struggling  for  acknowledgment,  will  appear  incom- 
patible with  membership  in  a  great  nation.  Foremost 
among  the  subduing,  repressive  agencies  of  the  future,  I 
am  disposed  to  rate  the  compulsory  military  service. 
Until  very  recently,  none  but  Prussian  students  had  to 
serve  their  term ;  students  in  the  other  German  states 
could  purchase  exemption.  Now  all  have  to  serve  alike 
for  one  year,  as  einj'dhrige  Freiwillige.  Viewed  on  one 
side,  this  is  a  cruel  waste  of  time ;  on  the  other,  it  will 
undoubtedly  teach  the  students  habits  of  subordination, 
and  cure  them  of  many  of  their  present  vagaries.  The 
man  who  has  drilled  and  mounted  guard  for  a  twelve- 


312  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

month  is  apt  to  take  a  soberer  view  of  life.  The  Prussian 
universities  are  a  proof  of  this ;  the  dueling  at  them  was 
never  so  bad  as  it  was  at  the  non-Prussian.  We  should 
do  the  German  student  great  injustice  by  ignoring  his 
antecedents.  His  virtues  are  mainly  his  own,  his  vices 
are  mainly  inherited;  they  are  the  relics  of  a  by-gone 
age,  and  cannot  be  shaken  off  by  a  single  generation, 
much  less  by  arbitrary  enactments  emanating  from  those 
in  authority.  They  must  disappear  of  themselves,  one 
by  one. 

As  one  who  has  enjoyed  to  the  full  and  in  a  thankful 
spirit  the  privileges  of  the  libertas  academica,  I  should 
regard  the  diminution  of  that  freedom  by  the  smallest 
tittle  as  a  disaster  to  Germany  and  to  the  world  at  large. 
Fortunately  there  is  no  danger  of  such  a  blunder.  The 
Germans  are  too  strongly  attached  to  their  system  of 
school  and  university  to  tamper  with  either,  too  deeply 
conscious  of  the  services  rendered  by  both  school-master 
and  professor  to  suffer  the  one  to  interfere  with  the  other. 
At  the  same  time  I  cherish  the  hope  that  the  day  will 
come,  and  that  right  speedily,  when  the  Sauf comment  and 
the  Mensur  shall  have  disappeared  save  as  traditions, 
when  the  student  shall  have  been  toned  down  to  con- 
formity with  the  rules  of  ordinary  society,  and  shall  cease 
to  look  upon  himself  as  aught  but  a  free  man  pursuing 
liberal  studies.  Hitherto  the  ideal  and  the  real  have  sel- 
dom been  blended  in  German  life.  Side  by  side  with  the 
highest  spiritual  culture,  are  still  to  be  found  only  too 
often  slovenliness  of  garb  and  awkwardness  —  shall  I  call 


DISCIPLINE. 


13 


it  uncouthness  ?  —  of  manner.  The  students  are  not 
alone  in  this  respect.  The  same  defect  may  be  observed, 
although  less  frequently  and  in*  a  less  degree,  in  pro- 
fessors and  men  of  letters.  How  often  is  the  traveler  in 
Germany  pained  at  the  want  of  congruity  between  the 
soul  and  the  man,  how  often  forced  to  regret  that  the 
entire  being,  to  use  the  threadbare  expression  of  Matthew 
Arnold,  is  not  yet  pervaded  by  sweetness  and  light.  It 
is  not  for  Americans  to  find  fault  with  German  students 
or  professors.  We  are  too  deeply  in.  their  debt  to  speak 
of  their  sterling  qualities  in  a  tone  of  flippancy.  It 
behooves  us  to  admire  and  respect  them.  Yet  the  friend 
who  rejoices  in  their  prosperity  may  be  permitted  to  wish 
for  them  a  trifle  more  of  ease  and  grace  of  manner,  a 
character  just  a  shade  less  positive  and  a  shade  more 
winsome. 

V. 

Discipline. 

After  endeavoring  so  strenuously  to  represent  the  Ger- 
man university  as  an  institution  that  affords  the  utmost 
intellectual  and  social  freedom,  it  may  seem  inconsistent 
in  me  to  devote  a  special  section  of  the  present  work  to 
the  subject  of  discipline.  How  can  there  be  such  a  thing 
as  discipline  at  Berlin,  or  Leipsic,  or  Gottingen  ?  What 
hold  has  the  university,  as  a  body,  a  corporation,  upon , 
the  individual  student?  To  which  I  answer:  a  very/ 
strong  hold,  much  stronger  indeed  than  the  arbitrary 
27 


314  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

sway  of  our  American  faculty-meetings.  When  the  uni- 
versity makes  its  authority  felt,  it  does  so  with  the  pre- 
cision, the  dignity,  and  the  inflexibility  of  a  legal  tribunal. 

The  administration  of  discipline  is  entrusted  to  the 
university  court. )  The  composition  of  this  body  varies 
with  the  different  universities.  The  principal  members, 
however,  are  the  Rector  and  the  University  Judge 
(  Universifatsrichter).  This  latter,  who  may  be  a  member 
of  the  legal  faculty  and  who  must  be  a  jurist,  is  a  govern- 
ment official.  He  represents  directly  the  head  of  the 
nation.  The  Rector,*  if  not  himself  a  jurist,  associates 
with  him  some  member  of  the  legal  faculty  as  adviser.  In 
grave  emergencies,  e.  g.,  in  case  of  a  student-insurrection, 
the  Senatus  Academicus  would  be  convened.  But  ordi- 
narily the  administration  of  justice  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
two  men  above  mentioned.  The  beadles  are  the  univer- 
sity police,  empowered  to  make  arrests  and  summon 
delinquents.  The  proceedings  before  the  university  court 
are  strictly  legal  in  their  character,  the  form  of  procedure 
being  prescribed  by  royal  mandate.  The  court  is  respon- 
sible, directly  and  personally,  to  the  Ministry  of  Public 
Instruction.  It  has  the  power  of  compelling  the  attend- 
ance of  those  subject  to  its  jurisdiction,  and  of  compell- 
ing testimony  under  oath,  if  necessary. 

The  jurisdiction  of  the  court  is  strictly  denned.  So 
also  are  the  punishments  that  it  can  inflict.  These  con- 
sist of  fines,  imprisonment,  damages,  and  suspension  or 

*The  rectorship  is  not  a  permanent  office,  but  rotates  from  year  to  year 
among  the  four  faculties. 


DISCIPLINE.  315 


expulsion.  The  ordinary  punishment  is  imprisonment  in 
the  university  Career  for  a  term  varying  from  one  day  to 
two  weeks.  The  offender  is  permitted  to  attend  lectures, 
on  parole,  but  otherwise  is  kept  in  close,  and  usually  soli- 
tary, confinement.  His  meals  are  served  in  his  cell,  by 
the  beadle.  He  has  to  pay  for  them  at  fixed  rates.  He 
can  have  in  his  cell  such  books  as  he  may  need  for  pur- 
suing his  studies,  and  he  is  permitted,  I  believe,  to  smoke. 
The  beadle  will  also  furnish  beer,  to  a  limited  extent, 
"  on  the  sly."  Incarceration,  therefore,  does  not  interfere 
with  one's  studies;  it  merely  restricts  one's  freedom  of 
movement  for  the  while.  It  is  scarcely  a  hardship  to  be 
locked  up  after  this  fashion  for  a  fortnight.  Yet  it  is  a 
monstrous  bore,  and  looked  upon  as  such  by  those  who 
have  had  occasion  to  experience  its  sobering  influence. 
Fines  are  imposed  occasionally  for  breaches  of  public 
order.  Damages  occur  chiefly  in  connection  with  alimen- 
tation suits.  In  general,  whatever  has  to  do  with  the 
money-matters  of  the  student  is  under  the  exclusive  con- 
trol of  the  academic  court.  Nearly  every  university  has 
its  Credit-edict,  a  legal  enactment  prescribing  with 
minuteness  the  amount  to  which  and  the  objects  for 
which  shop-keepers  may  give  credit.  Civil  suits  for 
goods  sold  and  delivered,  services  performed,  room-rent, 
and  the  like,  must  be  brought  in  the  academic  court. 
They  will  not  be  received  by  the  ordinary  civil  courts. 
If  the  claimant  has  not  complied  with  the  terms  of  the 
Credit-edict,  his  claim  is  barred,  and  cannot  be  brought 
even  after  the  student  has  left  the  university.  The 


316  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

exception,  like  that  arising  from  our  usury  laws,  runs  in 
perpetuo.  The  object  of  the  Credit-edict  is  to  protect 
students,  who  are  proverbially  thoughtless,  from  being 
overreached,  and  to  break  up  the  pernicious  system  of 
unlimited  credit  which  prevails  among  the  shop-keepers 
in  university  towns. 

The  reader  will  perceive  that  the  university  court  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  manners  and  morals  of  the  stu- 
dent, except  so  far  as  they  may  be  violations  of  positive 
law.  But  the  moment  the  student  transgresses  the  limits 
of  public  order  and  decency,  he  is  promptly  arraigned 
and  promptly  punished.  He  is  tried  as  offenders  are 
tried  in  our  police  courts,  i.  e.,  for  a  specific  offense, 
proved  by  witnesses,  and  punished  by  fine  or  imprison- 
ment. The  notion  of  reforming  the  delinquent,  of  reduc- 
ing him  to  a  more  or  less  lachrymose  state  and  exhorting 
him  to  mend  his  ways,  is  not  one  that  influences  the 
Universitatsrichter.  His  business,  like  that  of  every  other 
judge,  is  to  punish. 

The  leniency  with  which  dueling  is  treated  may  seem 
to  conflict  with  this  view  of  the  university  court  as  the 
guardian  of  public  order.  Although  I  have  already  dis- 
cussed the  subject  of  dueling,  I  take  the  liberty  of  revert- 
ing to  it,  by  way  of  adding  a  final  word.  According  to 
the  German  theory,  dueling  is  not  strictly  an  infringement 
upon  public  order.  When  two  men  quarrel  in  the  street 
and  come  to  blows,  they  commit  a  breach  of  the  peace 
for  which  both  are  to  be  punished.  But  if,  instead  of 
this,  one  man  challenges  the  other,  and  the  challenge  is 


DISCIPLINE.  317 


accepted,  the  duel  which  ensues  is  something  of  a  differ- 
ent nature ;  the  elements  of  agreement  and  secrecy  come 
in  to  change  its  character.  The  duel  is  punishable,  but 
not  as  a  breach  of  the  peace.  I  do  not  say  that  the 
theory  is  a  correct  one.  I  merely  give  it  as  it  has  been 
set  forth  to  me  repeatedly  by  Germans.  It  will  explain 
to  ITS  why  street-fighting  is  of  such  rare  occurrence  in 
Germany,  and  why  dueling  is  comparatively  so  common. 
Let  us  suppose  the  case  of  two  students  becoming  in- 
volved in  a  personal  altercation.  One  of  them  considers 
himself  insulted  by  the  other.  He  has  his  choice  of 
redress.  He  can  either  challenge,  or  he  can  lay  the 
matter  before  the  university  court  and  demand  a  formal 
apology  and  declaration  of  honor  (Ehrenerkl'drung).  The 
court  is  bound  by  the  terms  of  its  constitution  to  listen 
to  his  complaint,  to  examine  the  evidence,  and  to  com- 
pel the  offending  party  to  retract,  under  penalty  of  expul- 
sion. It  is  not  a  question  of  what  the  judge  may  or  may 
not  think  best,  it  is  a  question  of  legal  right  on  the  part 
of  the  complainant,  and  is  to  be  settled  according  to  the 
evidence.  But  if  the  student  sees  fit  to  waive  his  legal 
privileges  and  to  resort  to  arms,  he  takes,  as  I  have  said 
before,  his  chances.  The  university  judge,  seeing  him- 
self ignored,  is  certainly  not  going  out  of  his  way  to 
investigate  the  affair,  about  which  he  knows  nothing. 
All  that  he  does  know  is  that  the  practice  of  dueling  pre- 
vails among  students,  and  that  any  attempt  on  his  part  to 
put  a  sudden  stop  to  it  would  bring  a  nest  of  hornets 
about  his  ears.  The  beadles  cannot  watch  the  move- 

*27 


318  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

ments  of  seven  hundred  or  a  thousand  young  men  care- 
fully enough  to  prevent  more  than  one  duel  in  ten.  Oc- 
casionally they  succeed  in  making  a  capture.  The  offen- 
ders are  then  tried  summarily  and  imprisoned  for  a  fort- 
night. It  is  only  when  the  dueling  threatens  to  become 
too  frequent,  that  the  university  judge  considers  it  neces- 
sary to  whip  up  his  myrmidons  to  extra  zeal  and  activity. 
But  dueling  aside,  the  reader  can  rest  assured  that 
public  order  is  strictly  maintained.  The  student  may 
idle  away  his  time  unchecked,  he  may  amuse  himself  in  a 
variety  of  questionable  ways,  he  may  befuddle  himself 
every  day  in  the  week,  for  in  doing  so  he  injures  only 
himself,  and  the  university  does  not  consider  itself  a 
reformatory  school.  But  he  must  not  do  aught  to  inter- 
fere with  the  comfort  of  peaceable  citizens.  Boisterous 
singing  in  the  streets,  breaking  lamps,  stealing  sign- 
boards, abusing  night-watchmen,  and  a  dozen  other  play- 
ful diversions  of  the  kind,  against  which  the  American 
faculty  is  comparatively  helpless,  are  certain  to  call  down 
the  wrath  of  the  judge.  The  offenses  are  committed,  but 
then  they  are  always  punished.  Each  successive  genera- 
tion of  students  learns  by  its  own  experience  the  sad 
truth  embodied  in  the  following  parody  on  Schiller's 
Song  of  the  Bell,  inscribed  in  charcoal  on  the  walls  of  the 
Gottingen  Career: 

Gefdhrlich  ist  's  den  Pudel  wecken, 
Verderblich  ist  dcs  Pro/atf  Zahn, 

Jedoch  der  schrecklichste  dcr  Schrecken, 
Das  ist  der  Wolff  in  seinem 


DISCIPLINE.  319 


Wolff  was  at  the  time  judge.     Profax,  corresponding  to 
our  term  "  Prex,"  is  the  cant  name  for  Prorector. 

To  give  an  idea  of  the  strictness  of  the  principles  upon 
which  university  justice  is  administered,  I  narrate  the 
following  incident.  It  was  the  only  occasion  on  which  I 
came  in  contact  with  the  court.  One  afternoon  in 
August,  during  the  long  vacation,  I  called  at  the  room 
of  a  friend,  bringing  with  me  an  Italian,  a  young  man  not 
connected  in  any  way  with  the  university  but  engaged  in 
special  work  in  the  library.  My  friend  stepped  into  his 
sleeping-room  to  change  his  coat  preparatory  to  joining 
us  in  a  walk.  While  we  were  waiting  for  him,  the  Italian 
amused  himself  by  throwing  an  empty  soda-water  bottle 
at  a  dog  in  the  public  square  below.  It  was  a  thought- 
less, boyish  freak,  committed  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
and  did  no  harm,  not  even  to  the  dog.  Nevertheless, 
glass  is  not  a  substance  to  be  trifled  with.  The  bottle 
fell  upon  the  unpaved  earth  and  did  not  break.  One  of 
the  beadles,  who  happened  to  pass  by  at  the  moment, 
made  a  note  of  the  house  and  the  room.  No  sooner  had 
the  university  re-opened  in  October,  and  the  university 
court  resumed  its  sessions,  than  my  friend  was  cited  to 
appear.  I  accompanied  him  as  a  witness.  But  my  testi- 
mony was  not  even  received.  The  judge  addressed  my 
friend : 

J.  Herr — ? — ,  you  are  charged  with  having  thrown  a 
bottle  from  the  window  of  your  room  on  such  and  such  a 
day  last  August.  Did  you  commit  the  offense? 


320  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

A.  I  did  not.  I  knew  nothing  of  the  affair  until  it  was 
over. 

J.  But  the  bottle  was  thrown  from  your  room  ? 

A.  Yes.  But  it  was  thrown  by  somebody  else,  without 
my  knowledge  and  consent. 

J.  Who  threw  it,  then  ? 

A.  An  acquaintance,  named  — — . 

J.  Can  you  produce  him  in  court  ? 

A.  No.  He  has  left  Gb'ttingen,  and,  I  suppose,  will 
not  return.  I  do  not  know  where  he  is  at  present. 

J.  Very  well.  Then  I  shall  have  to  hold  you  respon- 
sible. The  occupant  of  a  room  is  liable  for  all  that  takes 
place  in  his  room.  You  are  fined  twenty  silver  groschen 
(fifty  cents).  I  cannot  tolerate  any  such  dangerous  prac- 
tice as  throwing  bottles  upon  public  ground,  where 
people  are  passing  continually.  If  you  cannot  produce 
the  real  offender,  you  must  suffer  yourself. 

Such  a  system  operates  to  promote  a  healthy  tone 
among  the  students.  One  rarely  if  ever  hears  them  speak 
of  their  professors  in  words  of  disrespect.  A  student  may 
look  upon  some  one  professor  as  an  old-fogy,  or  lang- 
weilig,  and  his  lectures  as  a  bore.  But  in  all  this  there  is 
no  personal  hostility,  no  grudge..  Furthermore,  one  does 
not  hear  from  the  students  complaints  of  injustice. 
Every  man  who  has  "  sat  out "  his  term  in  the  Career 
knows  full  well  that  he  was  legally  tried ,  and  legally 
punished.  He  would  no  more  think  of  complaining  of 
unfair  treatment  than  would  the  habitu6s  of  Jefferson 
Market.  He  knows  that  his  sentence  was  inflicted,  not 


COMPARISON  WITH  ENGLAND.  321 

for  the  violation  of  an  ill  denned  and  fluctuating  code  of 
morals  and  etiquette,  but  for  the  violation  of  laws  and 
regulations  emanating  from  the  State  itself  and  adminis- 
tered by  a  State  official  who  is  personally  responsible  for 
neglect  and  maladministration. 


VI. 

% 
Comparison  with  English  Universities 

I  approach  this  part  of  the  subject  with  reluctance. 
Not  having  visited  either  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  my 
knowledge  of  the  English  university  system  is  at  best 
only  second-hand,  and  confessedly  imperfect.  English 
scholarship  ranks  high  in  America.  We  are  apt  to  re- 
gard the  best  men  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  as  prodigies 
in  their  respective  departments.  Without  intending  to 
speak  in  disparagement  of  the  English  universities,  I 
venture  to  put  in  a  word  of  dissent  from  the  indiscrim- 
inate praise  that  is  heaped  upon  them  in  Mr.  Bristed's 
work.  One  has  only  to  study  attentively  Matthew 
Arnold's  report  on  the  educational  system  of  Germany, 
above  all  to  read  between  the  lines  and  detect  what  the 
author  thinks  but  dares  not  express,  to  gain  the  convic- 
tion that  higher  education  in  England  labors  under  many 
and  grave  evils. 

The  chief  objections  that  may  be  urged  against  the 
English  system,  so  far  as  I  can  formulate  them,  are  as 
follows.  The  education  afforded  by  Oxford  and  Cam- 


322  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

bridge   is   illiberal,  is   expensive,  and   is   comparatively 
unproductive  of  results. 

It  is  illiberal  both  in  its  quantity  and  its  quality.  All 
told,  the  number  of  students  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
is  between  3,000  and  4,000.  Leipsic  alone  has  almost  as 
many.  In  the  German  Empire,  the  matriculated  stu- 
dents (according  to  the  University  Calendar  for  the 
present  summer)  are  in  round  numbers  16,000.  This  in- 
cludes twenty  universities,  but  not  the  Catholic  Academy 
of  Miinster.  It  does  not  include  non-matriculating  at- 
tendants at  lectures,  of  whom  there  are  1,816  at  Berlin 
alone,  nor  does  it  include  the  Austrian  universities.  In 
other  words,  there  are  five  men  pursuing  a  higher  educa- 
tion in  Germany  for  one  in  the  United  Kingdom.  To 
this  it  may  be  objected  that  the  comparison  takes  no 
note  of  institutions  like  the  universities  of  Edinburgh 
and  Glasgow,  Trinity  College  (Dublin),  and  others  of  a 
more  limited  nature  in  the  city  of  London.  But  do 
Edinburgh,  Glasgow,  or  Trinity  rank  with  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  ?  I  put  the  question  as  a  foreigner,  one  who 
is  free  from  petty  local  prejudices  or  jealousies.  Are  not 
the  students  who  set  the  tone  better  prepared  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  than  elsewhere  ?  Is  not  the  instruction, 
as  a  whole,  of  a  higher  order  ?  Do  not  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge claim  to  be  the  seats  of  learning  by  eminence  ? 
When  an  English  writer  speaks  of  "  university  men,"  does 
he  not  mean,  as  a  matter  of  course,  Oxons  and  Can- 
tabs  ?  Regarding  the  amount  of  study  accomplished,  the 
scope  of  the  curriculum,  prestige,  wealth  of  endowment, 


COMPARISON  WITH  ENGLAND.  323 

social  and  political  influence,  we  shall  be  constrained  to 
place  Oxford  and  Cambridge  by  themselves,  as  the  best 
that  the  English  system  can  exhibit.  This  will  not 
hinder  us  from  admitting  the  personal  superiority  of 
many  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow  graduates. 

As  the  best,  then,  that  the  United  Kingdom  can  ex- 
hibit, I  must  pronounce  Oxford  and  Cambridge  illiberal 
in  comparison  with  the  stately  list  of  universities  that 
begins  with  Berlin  and  ends  with  Wiirzburg.  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  do  not  represent  the  entire  Kingdom,  do 
not  train  the  men  from  all  classes  of  society  and  for  all 
the  professions.  The  German  university  is  national 
property,  the  English  is  not.  It  is  a  private  corporation, 
pursuing  objects  of  its  own  selection  and  heeding  public 
clamor  only  when  that  clamor  becomes  too  loud,  too  un- 
mistakable to  be  longer  neglected.  It  is  sectarian  in  its 
character  and  in  its  tendency,  aristocratic  in  its  atmos- 
phere, and  —  severe  as  the  expression  may  sound  —  bigo- 
ted in  its  mode  of  instruction.  It  is  sectarian  because  it 
is  a  Church  of  England  institution.  Now  the  Church  of 
England  is  as  liberal  as  any  church  well  can  be.  The 
very  circumstance  that  it  is  broken  up  into  so  many  fac- 
tions or  cliques  only  proves  as  much.  Yet  broad  and 
generous  as  it  may  be,  it  is  still  narrow  in  mind  and 
heart  as  compared  with  mankind  at  large.  Is  it  not 
strange,  then,  well  nigh  intolerable,  that  a  country  like 
England,  claiming  to  have  shaken  off  all  the  fetters  of 
spiritual  and  political  bondage,  should  tolerate  such  ex- 
clusivism  in  letters?  Dissenters,  Catholics,  and  Jews,  it 


324  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

is  true,  can  now  pursue  their  studies  at  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge, and  are  admitted  to  competition  for  university 
prizes.  But  since  how  long  ?  And  even  now,  can  the 
Dissenter,  the  Catholic,  or  the  Jew  look  upon  Oxford  or 
Cambridge  as  his  university,  are  any  of  the  professors  his 
professors,  is  any  part  of  the  curriculum  shaped  with 
reference  to  his  tenets  ?  In  Germany,  the  Catholics  have 
their  own  universities,  or,  in  Protestant  countries,  their 
paritetic  faculties.  Among  the  professors  are  not  a  few 
Jews,  men  of  the  widest  reputation.  Every  German,  irre- 
spective of  creed,  of  sectional  jealousy,  feels  that  any 
German  university  can  be  his,  that  wherever  conflict  of 
religious  opinion  comes  in,  allowances  are  made  for  his 
peculiarities.  The  consequence  is  that  all  the  German 
universities  are  knit  together  by  the  strongest  of  spiritual 
bonds.  Students  pass  freely  from  one  to  the  other,  with- 
out so  much  as  dreaming  of  jealousy  or  of  drawing  invi- 
dious comparisons.  The  16,000  young  men  now  attend- 
ing the  twenty  German  universities  are  put  on  a  footing 
of  the  most  absolute  equality  as  to  rights  and  obligations. 
Nor  is  this  all.  These  universities  meet  the  intellectual 
wants  of  the  entire  nation.  Not  only  is  no  man  excluded 
from  them,  either  theoretically  or  practically,  but  every 
man  of  literary,  scientific,  or  political  aspirations  must 
attend  them.  They  are  the  only  avenues  through  which 
one  can  hope  to  enter  the  professions.  They  are  shaped 
so  as  to  furnish  instruction  of  the  highest  order  in  every 
branch.  One  can  scarcely  mention  a  subject  of  investi- 
gation that  is  not  taught  at  every  German  university  by 


COMPARISON  WITH  ENGLAND.  325 

one,  or  ten,  or  perhaps  twenty  men  of  ability.  The  uni- 
versities are  State  institutions,  open  to  all  citizens  as  a 
matter  of  right.  They  are  under  the  control  of  the  Min- 
istry of  Public  Instruction,  they  are  the  Corinthian  capi- 
tal of  the  national  system  of  education.  They  are  just 
as  much  national  property  as  the  public  schools,  the 
courts,  the  post-office. 

What  is  the  contrast  presented  by  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge ?  Young  men  are  compelled  to  wear  an  absurd 
mediaeval  garb,  one  that  might  afford  a  good  question  for 
our  debating  societies,  namely,  whether  it  was  intended 
by  nature  for  ornament  or  for  use.  Young  men  are  com- 
pelled to  attend  the  religious  services  of  a  church  which 
does  not  represent  the  entire  nation,  are  compelled  to 
live  by  routine,  to  keep  hours.  And  finally,  they  are 
compelled  to  follow  prescribed  courses  of  study.  Every- 
where compulsion,  nowhere  the  freedom  that  the  German 
is  taught  to  regard  as  the  prime  element  in  study.  The 
instruction  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  is  excellent  in  its 
way,  but  it  runs  in  too  narrow  grooves,  it  has  too  much 
the  character  of  training  for  a  boat-race,  and  too  little 
the  character  of"  science."  Those  who  compete  for  fellow- 
ships and  prizes  are  hampered  in  many  ways,  being  forced 
to  acquire  a  certain  amount  of  superficial  familiarity  with 
branches  outside  of  their  chosen  department.  The  clas- 
sical men  are  bored  with  mathematics,  the  mathematical 
men  are  bored  with  the  classics.  It  is  only  within  twenty 
or  thirty  years  that  the  "  natural-science  "  men  have  had 
any  chance  whatever.  We  shall  scarcely  find  a  more  apt 
28 


326  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

illustration  of  the  weakness,  the  want  of  liberality  in  the 
English  system,  than  Mr.  Bristed's  description  of  Dr. 
Whewell's  advent  to  power,  as  Master  of  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge.  Mr.  Bristed  writes  (p.  119),  "By  these  and 
similar  proceedings  he  made  himself  very  unpopular  with 
the  mass  of  students,  and  the  classical  men  were  particu- 
larly annoyed  at  an  avowed  intention  of  changing  the 
plan  on  which  scholarships  had  been  given.  It  was  semi- 
officially announced  through  the  various  tutors  and  other 
college  officers  (the  Master  is  not  supposed  to  hold  any 
personal  communication  with  the  undergraduates  in  his 
official  capacity),  that  a  certain  modicum  of  Mathe- 
matics —  I  forget  how  many  marks,  but  certainly  more 
than  many  of  the  classical  men  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
aspiring  to  —  would  be  absolutely  insisted  upon,  and  the 
classical  papers  of  those  who  did  not  come  up  to  this 
standard  would  not  be  looked  at.  *  *  *  The  classi- 
cal men  found  the  University  Tripos  regulations  which 
required  them  to  go  out  in  Mathematical  Honors  before 
they  could  sit  for  Classical,  exceedingly  oppressive,  but 
they  endured  them  as  sturdily  as  their  elders  do  the 
taxes ;  it  was  some  compensation  and  consolation  to  be 
able  to  do  without  the  much  disliked  study  at  Trinity, 
and  to  get  Scholarships  and  Fellowships  by  dint  of  Clas- 
sics alone.  For  Trinity  scholars  had  been  so  utterly 
unmathematical  as  to  go  out  among  the  no\\oi,  and  yet 
were  elected  Fellows  after  it.  The  cases  were  not  very 
common,  to  be  sure,  but  they  were  numerous  enough  for 
a  precedent.  To  introduce  into  the  college  examinations 


COMPARISON  WITH  ENGLAND.  327 

any  restrictions  like  those  which  embarrassed  the  uni- 
versity ones,  was  invading  the  votaries  of  classical  lore 
in  their  very  citadel."  The  reader  must  bear  in  mind 
the  distinction  between  the  college  and  the  university. 
Trinity  College  is  the  seat  of  classic  learning,  yet  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  as  a  whole,  is  mathematical  in 
its  proclivities.  The  college  favors  a  certain  set  of 
studies,  the  university  another.  A  new  Master  is  ap- 
pointed for  the  college,  who  threatens  to  change  its 
character.  Those  students  who  had  entered  Trinity 
College  in  good  faith,  supposing  that  no  more  than  a  limi- 
ted amount  of  work  in  mathematics  would  be  exacted 
from  them,  find  their  prospects  of  college  preferment 
suddenly  overcast.  With  them  it  was  not  merely  a  point 
of  honor,  but  a  question  of  pecuniary  loss.  They  were 
cut  off  from  the  chances  of  a  Fellowship.  Can  anything 
be  imagined  more  arbitrary,  more  spasmodic  ?  One  man 
is  to  have  the  right  of  setting  and  upsetting.  Education, 
which  should  be  planned  in  accordance  with  definite 
principles,  is  to  be  made  a  matter  of  individual  caprice. 
Neither  Oxford  nor  Cambridge  is  a  university  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  term.  It  is  a  congeries  of  colleges. 
Each  college  has  its  own  organization,  its  own  adminis- 
tration, its  own  body  of  students  and  instructors.  The 
university  has  but  a  nominal  share  in  the  instruction  and 
the  discipline.  The  most  that  it  does  is  to  set  the 
requirements  for  the  Tripos.  In  Germany  there  are  no 
colleges.  The  faculties  of  the  university  are  co-ordinated. 
The  rectorship  passes  year  by  year  from  one  faculty  to 


328  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

another.  The  student  is  responsible  to  his  faculty  for  the 
quality  of  his  work,  but  the  discipline  is  administered  by 
the  university  at  large.  The  theologian,  the  jurist,  the  clas- 
sical philologist,  the  mathematician,  the  student  of  medi- 
cine, the  historian,  the  geologist,  are  co-equal.  No  one 
can  claim  precedence  over  the  other.  Merit  is  not 
gauged  according  to  preconceived  opinions  as  to  the 
respective  superiority  of  classics  over  mathematics,  or 
vice  versa,  or  of  the  two  over  the  sciences  of  nature. 
Each  student  has  his  own  branch  of  study,  and  ranks  as 
good  or  bad  according  to  his  performances  in  that 
branch  alone. 

To  make  this  perfectly  clear,  I  should  place  side  by 
side,  in  tabular  array,  the  list  of  hours  and  studies  of 
Oxford,  for  instance,  and  of  some  German  university,  say 
Leipsic.  But  the  space  is  wanting.  I  give  in  a  subse- 
quent place  the  list  for  Leipsic  alone.  The  reader  who 
wishes  to  inform  himself  more  fully,  need  only  contrast  it 
with  the  Oxford  calendar.  After  making  the  comparison, 
he  will  scarcely  be  tempted  to  rank  the  two  institutions 
as  equals. 

The  secret  of  the  German  university  instruction  is  this. 
It  rests  upon  a  broad  basis  of  well  graded  public  schools. 
How  England  stands  in  this  respect,  has  been  abundantly 
shown  by  Matthew  Arnold.  The  English  have  no 
schools  that  correspond  to  the  German  gymnasiums. 
Both  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  with  all  their  pretensions, 
have  to  make  good  the  defects  of  even  such  schools  as 
Eton,  Rugby,  Harrow  and  Winchester.  I  have  cited  in 


COMPARISON  WITH  ENGLAND.  329 

another  place  the  courses,  in  whole  or  in  part,  of  two 
gymnasiums  selected  at  random  as  representatives  of 
their  class.  They  show  that  the  public  schools  of  Ger- 
many teach  all  that  a  man  need  master  in  the  way  of 
general  discipline.  The  classics  are  well  taught,  but  so 
are  mathematics,  the  modern  languages,  the  natural 
sciences,  history,  and  belles  lettres.  The  Primaner  who 
gets  his  Maturitdtszeugniss  (certificate  of  ripeness)  is  fully 
the  peer  of  the  best  sixth-form  boy  of  Rugby  in  clas- 
sics —  even  Mr.  Arnold  admits  that  —  and,  what  Mr. 
Arnold  passes  over  in  silence  without  expressly  admit- 
ting, he  is  superior  in  everything  else.  He  knows  all  that 
can  be  expected  of  a  well  educated  man  in  the  way  of 
general  information  on  general  topics.  For  his  special 
training,  and  for  this  alone,  there  remains  the  university. 
An  additional  defect  of  the  English  universities  is  their 
practice  of  testing  scholarship  by  close  competitive  ex- 
aminations. The  Honor-men  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
the  Scholars  and  Fellows,  are  undoubtedly  men  of  supe- 
rior attainments.  They  have  done  a  prodigious  amount 
of  work  in  a  very  short  time.  The  question  is,  whether 
the  work  is  of  the  right  kind,  and  whether  it  is  done  in 
the  right  way.  After  reading  attentively  Mr.  Bristed's 
work,  and  others,  I  am  forced  to  the  conclusion  — 
shared  moreover  by  the  leading  scholars  of  Germany  — 
that  competitive  examinations  are  not  the  proper  test  of 
scientific  study.  Speed,  knack,  what  the  English  call 
"  pace,"  is  unduly  exalted  at  the  expense  of  thoroughness 
and  originality.  The  candidate  for  honors  reads  certain 
*28 


33°  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

works  and  authors  because  he  has  every  reason  for  be- 
lieving that  they  will  be  "  set,"  he  neglects  others  because 
he  knows  that  they  are  not  "set."  In  other  words,  he 
subjects  his  individual  preferences  to  the  conventional- 
isms of  the  examiners.  Term  after  term,  year  after  year, 
he  is  kept  on  the  stretch.  He  asks  himself  repeatedly 
the  question :  Can  I  afford  to  do  this  ?  Will  it  not  be 
safer  to  do  that  ?  He  has  not  the  opportunity  of  branch- 
ing off  into  some  unexplored  field  of  study  and  producing 
novel,  independent  results.  Questions  which  the  English 
Honor-man  passes  over,  on  the  plea  that  they  will  proba- 
bly "  not  pay,"  are  precisely  the  ones  which  the  German 
student  takes  up  with  patience  and  energy,  in  the  hope 
of  achieving  reputation  as  an  original  thinker.  Besides, 
the  strain  involved  in  preparing  for  a  competitive  exam- 
ination is  too  severe.  It  exhausts  the  mind  and  the 
body.  Success  is  too  dearly  bought,  failure  is  disheart- 
ening. The  soundest  thinkers  of  England,  I  believe,  are 
slowly  awaking  to  the  consciousness  that  the  prize-exam- 
inations of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  do  not  answer  their 
purpose  satisfactorily. 

In  the  next  place,  the  instruction  at  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge costs  too  much.  Compared  with  Germany,  Eng- 
land is  an  expensive  country.  Yet  the  cost  of  living  at 
an  English  university  is  largely  in  excess  of  what  it 
should  be,  even  for  England.  The  reason  is  that  prices 
are  arbitrary,  and  the  style  of  living  is  conventional. 
The  tone  is  set  by  the  many  wealthy  young  men,  noble- 
men and  parvenus,  who  have  more  money  than  they 


COMPARISON  WI TH  RNGLA  ND.  3 3 1 

know  how  to  spend  properly,  and  who  launch  accord- 
ingly into  all  sorts  of  extravagance.  What  with  "  tigers," 
horses,  dogs,  boating-clubs,  elaborate  dinners  and  sup- 
pers, they  make  an  ostentation  of  wealth  that  either 
throws  the  poorer  students  completely  into  the  shade,  or 
forces  them  into  ruinous  competition.  This  can  scarcely 
be  said  of  the  German  universities.  The  wealthy  students 
of  Berlin  or  Bonn  or  Leipsic  do  not  exercise  a  like  in- 
fluence over  their  fellows,  for  the  reason  that  they  do  not 
come  in  such  close  personal  contact  with  them.  In  Eng- 
land, a  student  has  the  same  associates  for  three  or  four 
years,  lives  with  them  in  the  same  quadrangle,  recites  in 
the  same  classes,  attends  the  same  chapel  and  church,  sits 
at  the  same  Commons.  In  Germany,  each  man  lives  by 
himself,  selects  his  rooms  and  his  dining-place  according 
as  his  means  may  permit,  and  associates  only  with  men 
who  are  personally  congenial.  If  he  has  had  the  ill  luck 
to  make  the  acquaintance  of  a  "  fast  "  set  in  his  first 
semester,  it  is  an  easy  matter  to  reform  by  cutting  them 
in  the  second.  If  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  he  has 
only  to  try  a  change  of  air  by  removing  to  another  uni- 
versity. It  was  a  common  saying  in  my  day,  that  the 
Heidelberg  idlers  came  to  Gbttingen,  after  a  semester  or 
two,  to  do  their  studying. 

Not  only  are  the  expenses  of  living  at  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  benefit  received, 
but  the  atmosphere  of  both  places,  particularly  of  Oxford, 
is  thoroughly  aristocratic.  I  do  not  condemn  this  un- 
qualifiedly as  a  fault.  If  England  sees  fit  to  maintain 


332  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

her  aristocratic  institutions,  it  is  not  for  the  foreigner  to 
take  her  to  task  therefor.  Yet  this  concession  should  not 
prevent  us  from  looking  the  facts  full  in  the  face  and 
estimating  their  bearing  and  probable  results.  The 
higher  education  of  England  is  in  the  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  the  higher,  say  rather  the  highest  classes.  Not 
that  all  the  students  come  from  the  nobility  and  the 
bourgeoisie  parvenue.  The  real  study  at  both  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  is  done  by  the  sons  of  toiling  barristers,  coun- 
try clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  other  per- 
sons of  limited  means.  Yet  even  these  students  are 
under  the  influence  of  the  aristocratic  element.  They 
themselves  are  aristocrats  in  disguise,  they  represent  the 
side  lines  of  the  nobility.  Most  certainly  they  are  not 
democratic.  The  popular  element  in  England  is  ex- 
cluded de  facto  from  participation  in  the  real  or  sup- 
posed benefits  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  If  we  examine, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  mass  of  students  in  any  German 
university,  we  shall  find  that  it  is  composed  of  representa- 
tives of  every  class,  from  the  highest  nobility,  perhaps 
the  royal  family  itself,  to  the  lowliest  shop-keeper  and  dis- 
trict tax-collector.  From  this  results  the  happy  equality 
that  characterizes  the  German  seats  of  learning.  They  are 
neither  aristocratic  nor  democratic  in  the  political  or  the 
social  sense,  but  they  are  what  they  should  be, —  national. 
They  exist  for  the  entire  nation,  they  are  supported  by 
contributions  from  the  national  purse,  and  they  supply 
the  nation  in  turn  with  all  its  clergymen,  physicians,  law- 
yers, teachers,  men  of  science.  Hence  the  respect,  I  may 


COMPARISON  WITH  ENGLAND.  333 


say  the  enthusiastic  affection,  the  unbounded  pride  that  the 
nation  as  a  whole  takes  in  its  universities.  It  is  not  pride 
in  any  one  university,  in  Berlin  or  Leipsic,  nor  in  any 
one  professor  or  set  of  professors,  but  in  the  system  as  a 
system,  that  affords  to  all  an  equal  chance  of  first-rate 
education  at  the  lowest  possible  price.  Now  much  as  we 
respect  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  great  as  may  be  our 
veneration  for  the  names  and  associations  that  cluster 
around  them,  we  cannot  in  fairness  regard  them  as  in  this 
sense  national.  They  are  English,  intensely  English; 
they  could  not  exist  outside  the  factitious  atmosphere 
that  envelops  English  "  society."  Yet  they  do  not  rep- 
resent the  entire  nation,  only  its  governing  classes.  We 
do  well  to  think  with  admiration  of  the  great  scholars 
that  have  lived  and  died  on  the  banks  of  the  Isis  and  the 
Cam.  But  we  shall  do  better  to  judge  them  also  by  what 
they  have  failed  to  accomplish.  What  have  they  done 
for  the  diffusion  of  science  and  of  culture  in  England  ? 
Have  they  not,  by  their  exclusiveness,  their  prejudice, 
helped,  unconsciously  perhaps  yet  not  the  less  directly,  to 
make  the  English  folk  what  it  is,  the  most  benighted,  the 
most  illiterate,  the  most  helpless,  the  most  brutal  among 
all  the  nations  that  call  themselves  civilized?  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  are  at  this  day  not  seats  of  learning  pure 
and  simple,  they  are  the  trysting  places  of  the  nobility 
and  the  bourgeoisie  parvenue.  The  noblemen  are  in  need 
of  money  to  preserve  and  round  off  ancestral  acres,  the 
wealthy  seek  after  titles.  At  the  university,  then,  are  laid 
the  foundations  of  future  alliances  political  and  matri- 


334  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

monial.  Probably  half  the  students  who  go  to  Oxford 
and  Cambridge,  do  so  not  to  study  but  to  "  form  connec- 
tions." And  the  possible  results  ?  It  is  not  for  me  to 
predict  coming  events.  Yet  should  the  fourth  estate 
succeed  in  sending  a  certain  number  of  representatives 
to  parliament,  enough  to  form  a  majority  with  the  Dis- 
senters and  the  Catholics, —  such  a  conjuncture  is  any- 
thing but  impossible,  —  what  position  would  the  English 
universities  occupy  ?  Could  they  make  any  reply  to  the 
searching  demand  :  What  have  you  done  for  us  ?  Of 
what  good  to  us  are  your  scholarships,  your  fellowships, 
your  Regius  professors  ?  Why  should  we  refrain  from 
reconstructing  you  from  top  to  bottom  ? 

Finally,  the  English  university  system  is  comparatively 
unproductive  of  results.  It  may  seem  presumptuous  in 
any  one  man  to  break  thus  the  rod  of  judgment  over  the 
backs  of  so  many  hundreds  older,  wiser,  more  renowned 
than  himself.  Yet  surely  any  one  claiming  to  be  a 
scholar  has  the  right  to  judge  other  men's  scholarship  by 
what  it  accomplishes.  Personally  acquainted  with  not 
one  of  the  many  professors  and  fellows  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  I  can  estimate  them  only  by  what  they  do 
and  by  what  they  fail  to  do.  Regarding  science  and 
scholarship  in  the  aggregate,  then,  I  venture  to  assert 
that  there  are  only  two  departments  in  which  the  English 
are  at  the  present  time  prominent,  viz.,  pure  mathematics 
and  natural  history.  In  all  the  others,  they  play  a  sub- 
ordinate part,  And  in  these  two  departments  themselves, 
the  universities  have  but  a  small  share.  Such  men  as 


COMPARISON  WITH  ENGLAND.  335 

Tyndall,  Huxley,  and  Darwin,  move  outside  the  univer- 
sity sphere.  It  may  be  doubted  even  whether  they  meet 
with  as  hearty  support  and  encouragement  in  their  own 
country  as  they  do  in  Germany  and  in  France.  In  the 
departments  of  law,  history,  speculative  philosophy,  phi- 
lology, orientalia,  theology,  the  English  universities  pro- 
duce scarcely  anything  that  can  be  called  first-rate.  Let 
us  take  up  some  of  them  in  order.  As  for  law,  neither 
Oxford  nor  Cambridge  pretends  to  give  a  legal  education. 
Oxford  looks  upon  its  honorary  degree  of  D.  C.  L.  as  the 
choicest  gift  in  its  power  to  confer.  Yet  Oxford  is 
incapable  of  teaching  the  Pandects.  Were  an  Oxford 
fellow,  I  do  not  say  an  undergraduate,  to  undertake  the 
study  of  the  Civil  Law,  what  help  could  he  obtain  from 
the  university  ?  The  very  first  thing  that  he  would  have 
to  do  would  be  to  learn  German  and  French,  because  in 
those  languages  alone  would  he  find  available  text-books. 
Even  in  the  English  Common  Law,  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge do  nothing.  The  lawyer  pursues  his  studies  at 
the  Temple,  and  at  the  Westminster  Courts.  Should  he 
be  foolhardy  enough  to  venture  upon  the  history  of  the 
Common  Law,  where  will  he  find  any  aid  and  encourage- 
ment, any  professors  who  can  guide  him  in  his  researches, 
can  tell  him  what  to  read  and  how  to  read  it  ?  He  must 
work  by  himself,  must  spend  years  of  toil  in  forming  mere 
preliminary  judgments,  such  as  the  German  student  picks 
up  in  his  first  semester.  In  other  words,  there  is  not  in 
all  England  a  school  of  legal  history  or  legal  philosophy. 
Nor  are  the  English  better  off  in  the  matter  of  political 


336  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

history.  The  leading  historians  of  the  present  generatior 
are  Freeman,  Froude,  Trollope  and  Lingard.  As  tc 
Froude's  merits,  the  reader  may  consult  the  stinging 
reviews  of  him  in  the  Historische  Zeitschrift.  With  regarc 
to  the  others,  can  any  one  compare  them  for  a  single 
sober  moment  with  men  like  Ranke,  Waitz,  Wattenbach 
Droysen,  Jaffe,  and  von  Sybel?  Is  there  any  spot  ir 
England,  inside  or  outside  the  universities,  where  history 
is  taught  as  an  independent  branch  of  science?  The 
English  do  something  for  the  history  of  their  own  coun- 
try, but  not  much  more  than  the  Germans  are  doing  foi 
them.  Whereas  they  do  nothing  for  the  history  of  Ger- 
many, next  to  nothing  for  the  history  of  France,  Italy  and 
Spain.  The  most  that  they  do  is  to  appropriate  the  hard- 
won  researches  of  continental  scholars  and  serve  them 
up  to  the  public  in  the  shape  of  palatable  magazine 
articles.  Still  worse  is  the  case  with  philology.  One 
might  suppose  that  the  shades  of  Bentley  and  Porson 
would  rise  from  the  dust  and  castigate  their  degenerate 
successors.  The  only  philologist  of  general  reputation 
connected  with  the  English  Universities  is  Max  Miiller, 
a  German  !  It  would  be  superfluous  to  call  off  in  this 
place  the  long  array  of  names  of  men  who  have  made 
Germany  famous  in  this  department,  all  the  Grimms  and 
Bopps,  and  Schleichers.  What  have  the  English  to  set  up 
against  them  ?  When  the  student  of  philology  begins  his 
investigations  into  the  origin  of  language,  into  the  rela- 
tions of  the  Indo-Germanic,  the  Semitic,  the  Ugric  fami- 
lies of  languages,  what  English  authorities  and  text-books 


COMPARISON  WITH  ENGLAND.  337 

does  he  consult?  Even  in  the  field  where,  above  all 
others,  we  have  reason  to  expect  much  of  English 
scholarship,  namely,  the  very  limited  department  of 
English  philology,  the  state  of  things  is,  to  speak  mildly, 
humiliating.  The  only  scientific,  rational  grammars  of 
the  English  language  are  the  works  of  two  Germans, 
Koch  and  Matzner.  The  only  critical  edition  of  the 
body  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  is  by  a  German,  Grein. 
And  that  same  German  is  obliged  to  suspend  his  edition 
of  the  body  of  Anglo-Saxon  prose  because  he  discovers 
that  the  English  text-editions  upon  which  he  relied  are 
untrustworthy!  No  Englishman  thinks  it  worth  the 
while  to  go  out  of  his  way  to  study  the  Hildebrandslied  or 
the  Nibelungenlied  or  Parzival,  yet  he  suffers  the  German 
to  invade  him  in  his  home  and  instruct  him  upon 
Beovulf,  Cynevulf,  and  Aelfric. 

It  is  needless  to  push  the  comparison  farther.  While 
the  Germans,  restless,  enterprising,  thoroughly  trained, 
have  ransacked  the  libraries  of  all  Europe,  making  them- 
selves at  home  in  the  political  and  literary  history  of 
every  country,  editing  rare  works  in  old  French,  old 
Spanish,  Italian,  Slavonic,  Norse,  inventing  new  theories 
and  processes  and  bringing  them  within  the  reach  of 
every  student,  the  English  have  rested  on  their  labors,  in 
insular  exclusiveness.  They  have  trod  their  round  of 
Tripos  and  Little-Go,  they  have  written  clever  verses  in 
Latin  and  made  smooth  translations  and  "  floored  " 
papers,  but  they  have  not  produced  their  share  of 
scholars.  They  are  laggards  in  the  great  international 
29 


338  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

handicap,  because  they  are  overweighted  with  routine 
and  with  narrow-minded  devotion  to  certain  studies.  Is 
it  because  the  English  spirit  has  lost  its  quondam  energy 
of  initiative  ?  For  one,  I  am  loth  to  believe  it.  I  have 
not  lost  faith  in  the  brain-power  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race. 
What  that  race  needs  is  emancipation  from  the  thraldom 
of  caste  in  education.  Should  the  fourth  estate  do  noth- 
ing worse  than  reconstruct  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  Eton, 
Harrow,  Rugby,  and  the  entire  system  from  top  to 
bottom,  its  advent  to  power  might  be  hailed  as  a  blessing. 

VII. 

Comparison  with  American  Colleges. 

I  To  enter  into  an  elaborate  comparison  of  the  German 
and  the  American  systems  of  higher  education,  feature 
by  feature,  would  not  only  swell  the  present  work  beyond 
reasonable  limits,  but  would  expose  the  one  making  it  to 
the  charge  of  being  unpractical,  unpatriotic,  radical,  ag- 
gressive, doctrinaire.  The  time  has  not  yet  arrived  when 
the  real  friends  of  educational  reform  can  look  for  a  fair, 
rational  discussion.  Passion  and  prejudice  run  too  high, 
there  is  too  much  dogmatism  on  the  part  of  both  con- 
servative and  innovator.  The  argument  of  the  advo- 
cates of  the  existing  regime  might  be  framed  somewhat 
in  this  wise.  The  American  system  is  American,  it  has 
grown  out  of  the  needs  of  the  country,  it  is  adapted  to 
the  formation  of  national  character,  it  gives  our  young 
men  what  they  require  for  playing  their  part  in  public 


COMPARISON  WITH  AMERICA.  339 

life.  Moreover,  we  are  here,  strongly  entrenched.  Be- 
side us  there  is  none  else,  we  cannot  be  dispossessed  of 
our  vantage  ground,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ? 
Now  there  is  not  one  of  the  above  propositions  that  is 
not  susceptible  of  being  overhauled  and  corrected,  or  at 
least  modified.  But  the  time  for  doing  it  is  not  yet  at 
hand.  The  American  public  is  still  indifferent,  as  a  pub- 
lic. It  is  not  aroused  to  the  vital  connection  between 
the  State  and  education  in  all  its  stages,  highest  as  well 
as  lowest.  The  explanation  of  the  signal  failure  of  the 
movement  in  behalf  of  Civil  Service  Reform  is  to  be 
found  in  the  circumstance  that  the  public  is  apathetic. 
The  nation  at  large  does  not  care  whether  it  has  better 
office-holders  or  not.  It  secretly  approves,  rather  than 
disapproves,  of  the  principle  of  succession  in  office.  After 
a  man  has  been  post-master  or  revenue-collector  for  four 
years,  it  is  only  fair — argues  the  American  mind  —  that 
he  give  some  one  else  "a  chance."  Such  is  public  opin- 
ion, and  it  is  idle  to  quarrel  with  it.  A  similar  view  is 
f.aken  of  education.  We  do  not  need  highly  educated 
men.  So  long  as  our  graduates  can  spell  with  tolerable 
accuracy,  have  a  modicum  of  the  classics  and  mathe- 
matics, can  write  and  declaim  with  fluency,  what  more  do 
you  expect  of  them?  They  must  become  "practical," 
must  learn  the  theory  through  the  practice,  and  rough  it 
with  the  others.  Right  or  wrong,  this  is  the  average 
estimate  set  upon  the  value  of  college  education.  The 
public  does  not  perceive  the  importance  of  any  thing 
higher  and  more  systematic.  Indeed,  I  am  tempted  at 


340  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

times  to  believe  that  the  colleges  have  exceeded,  on  some 
points,  the  demands  of  their  friends.  They  give  more 
than  is  expected  of  them.  There  are  symptoms  of  a 
desire  to  react  from  the  progress  made  during  the  past 
fifteen  years.  In  making  this  assertion,  I  have  in  view, 
not  so  much  Yale  and  Harvard  as  the  colleges  in  the 
Middle  and  Western  States.  Urged  on  by  a  spirit  of 
rivalry  which  is  in  itself  deserving  only  of  praise,  these 
latter  have  made  their  curriculum  more  extensive  and 
have  also  enforced  its  requirements  more  strictly.  In 
doing  this,  they  have  gone  a  step  too  far,  they  have  out- 
run the  capacities  of  the  preparatory  schools.  Up  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  the  American  college  was  an 
easy-going  institution,  where  one  was  not  forced  beyond 
his  natural  gait,  but  had  leisure  to  follow  his  inclinations, 
and  especially  to  read.  This  has  been  changed.  New 
professorships  in  the  natural  sciences  have  been  created, 
and  the  chairs  have  been  filled  with  energetic  young  men, 
enthusiastic  in  their  vocation,  and  —  I  trust  they  will  par- 
don the  bluntness  of  the  expression  —  rather  intolerant 
towards  those  who  do  not  keep  pace  with  them.  Many 
of  the  professors  in  the  older  departments  are  also  young 
men  who  have  studied  abroad,  are  equally  enthusiastic, 
and  equally  intolerant.  The  result  is  that  we  are  called 
upon  to  witness  a  curious  phenomenon,  one  that  must  act 
as  a  disturbing  element  in  every  system  of  education,  to 
wit,  a  direct  conflict  of  studies.  Our  undergraduates  have 
at  the  present  day  too  many  studies,  and  are  hurried 
through  difficult  and  disconnected  subjects  at  too  rapid  a 


COMPARISON  WITH  AMERICA.  341 

rate.  The  new  professors  in  the  classics  and  the  new 
professors  in  the  natural  sciences  threaten  to  tear  the 
child  asunder  between  them,  and  there  is  no  Solomon  at 
hand  to  decide  upon  the  true  alma  mater.  Viewed  in 
this  light,  the  assertion  now  going  the  rounds  of  the  press 
and  attributed  variously  to  Mr.  Beecher  and  Mr.  Fields, 
namely,  that  our  colleges  have  not  succeeded  in  produc- 
ing one  first-rate  man  in  any  department  since  1855,  will 
perhaps  receive  its  explanation.  Whatever  the  college 
of  by-gone  days  may  have  failed  to  do,  it  certainly  gave 
its  pupil  a  better  opportunity  than  his  successor  now 
enjoys,  of  maturing  in  conformity  to  the  laws  of  indi- 
vidual being. 

The  present  remarks  will  be  confined  to  three  points : 
the  want  of  connection  between  College  and  State,  the 
question  of  economy,  and  the  question  of  discipline. 

The  College,  unlike  the  German  University,  rests  upon 
nothing  and  ends  in  nothing.  We  shall  not  obtain  a  just 
conception  of  the  University  unless  we  view  it  in  its  two- 
fold bearing.  It  is,  on  the  one  hand,  the  key-stone  of 
the  arch  of  public-school  education  in  Germany.  Every- 
thing in  that  system  leads  up  to  the  university  by  a  series 
of  carefully  graduated  steps.  The  gymnasium  rests  upon 
the  Volksschule,  the  university  rests  upon  the  gymnasium. 
The  whole  cannot  subsist  without  each  one  of  the  parts. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  University  is  the  door  of  approach 
to  all  the  professions  and  also  to  public  office.  Whoever 
is  not  content  with  trade  and  commerce  must  sub- 
mit to  its'  liberalizing  discipline.  Without  the  public 

*29 


342  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

schools  as  a  basis,  and  state-service  or  the  professions  as 
a  goal,  the  University  would  speedily  lose  its  right  of 
being. 

It  will  be  needless  to  dwell  upon  the  contrast  presented 
by  the  college.  I  have  said  that  it  rests  upon  nothing 
and  ends  in  nothing.  By  this  is  meant  that  the  college 
is  wholly  dissevered  from  the  state.  It  does  not  rest 
upon  the  system  of  public  schools,  neither  is  it  the  place 
where  candidates  prepare  themselves  for  state-service. 
Massachusetts  excepted,  there  is  not  a  state  where  pub- 
lic schools  attempt  to  fit  young  men  for  college.  The 
needful  preparation  can  be  obtained  only  at  academies 
and  private  schools  which  are  exempt  from  state  control 
and  which  pursue  each  the  plan  that  seems  to  it  best. 
However  excellent  these  schools  may  be,  they  do  not 
constitute  a  well  organized,  uniform  system.  The  college 
ends  in  nothing,  because  its  curriculum  is  not  enforced 
as  the  condition  precedent  to  civil  and  professional 
appointment. 

Dropping  abstract  terms,  I  put  the  case  of  real  "  na- 
tional education  "  before  the  reader  in  the  shape  of  an 
imaginary  example.  Let  us  suppose  the  state  of  New 
York  to  enact  a  statute  to  the  following  effect :  "As  soon 
as  may  be  practicable,  the  academies  of  this  state  shall 
be  reconstituted  as  public  schools  of  the  first  grade. 
The  teachers  now  in  office  shall  be  required  to  pass  an 
examination  equivalent  to  that  for  B.  A.  or  B.  S.  in  some 
one  of  the  acknowledged  colleges  of  the  state.  Future 
applicants  for  the  position  of  teacher  in  the  academies 


COMPARISON  WITH  AMERICA.  343 

and  grammar  schools  must  have  passed  through  the  full 
public  school  course,  beginning  with  the  grammar  school 
and  finishing  with  the  college,  and  received  the  degree 
of  B.  A.  or  B.  S.  The  colleges  shall  be  placed  under  the 
supervision  of  the  State  Board  of  Education.  The  trus- 
tees of  a  college  shall  have  the  right  to  propose  nomina- 
tions for  professorships,  but  the  governor  of  the  state 
shall  exercise  his  discretion  in  rejecting  unsuitable 
nominees.  No  college  shall  be  considered  as  a  state 
institution  or  entitled  to  recognition  as  an  institution  of 
learning,  that  does  not  submit  to  the  regulations  of  the 
state  authorities.  As  soon  as  the  provisions  of  this  act 
shall  have  been  carried  out,  no  one  shall  be  admitted  to 
the  bar  or  bench  of  this  state,  or  be  permitted  to  practice 
medicine  in  the  state,  or  be  employed  as  teacher  in  the 
public  schools,  who  shall  not  have  received  the  degree  of 
B.  A.,  M.  D.  or  B.  S.  from  some  state  college  acknowledged 
as  such.  Furthermore,  no  one  shall  be  eligible  for 
appointment  or  election  to  state-office  without  such 
degree.  Finally,  all  private  schools  wishing  to  be  placed 
on  an  equality  with  the  state  academies  or  grammar 
schools  must  conform  in  all  respects  to  the  curriculum 
of  the  academy  or  the  grammar  school,  and  must  submit 
to  the  state  requirements  in  the  matter  of  holding  exami- 
nations and  appointing  teachers." 

Such  an  ideal  enactment,  imperfectly  sketched  as  it  is, 
will  nevertheless,  I  trust,  bring  the  case  home  to  the 
reader.  It  is  of  course  impracticable.  Yet  I  venture  to 
say  that  until  we  are  prepared  to  introduce  and  maintain 


344  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

something  of  the  sort,  it  will  be  useless  to  talk  of  Civil 
Service  Reform  and  University  Education.  Our  office- 
holders may  be  improved  somewhat  in  quality,  our  col- 
leges may  give  a  higher  grade  of  instruction,  but  we  shall 
not  have  a  body  of  trained  officials,  neither  shall  we  have 
a  system  of  universities.  Our  colleges  teach  already  all 
that  can  be  demanded  of  institutions  that  receive  no 
official  recognition  from  the  state,  and  that  are-  viewed 
with  indifference,  not  to  say  skepticism,  by  the  leaders  in 
mercantile  and  political  life.  Let  the  reader  extol  our 
college  system  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  I  still  maintain 
that  so  long  as  three  fourths  of  our  national  and  state 
representatives,  nine  tenths  of  our  office-holders,  and  the 
majority  of  the  teachers  in  our  public  schools  are  non- 
graduates,  it  is  the  most  extravagant  optimism  to  regard 
the  colleges  as  playing  any  acknowledged  part  in  national 
life.  The  famous  Simmons  case  proves  this  beyond  con- 
troversy. If  there  be  any  city  in  America  that  has  just 
reason  to  be  proud  of  its  public-school  education,  it  is 
Boston.  If  there  be  any  college  in  America  that  has 
done  more  than  another  for  the  promotion  of  learning 
and  culture,  and  that  is  merely  waiting  for  the  word  to 
constitute  itself  into  a  bona  fide  university,  it  is  Harvard. 
Yet  Boston  and  Cambridge  combined  were  unable  to 
prevent  the  appointment  of  a  man  notoriously  incompe- 
tent, a  man  whose  mere  nomination,  under  a  system  like 
that  of  Germany,  would  have  been  an  impossibility. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  show  that   in   point  of 
economy  also  our  colleges  have  much  to  learn  from  Ger- 


COMPARISON  WITH  AMERICA.  345 

many.  The  reader's  most  careful  attention  is  invited  to 
the  tabular  statement  of  income  and  expenditure  for  the 
university  of  Leipsic,  presented  elsewhere.  Two  of  our 
colleges,  Harvard  and  Yale,  have  each  —  if  I  mis- 
take not  —  as  large  an  income  as  that  of  Leipsic.  If 
smaller,  the  difference  is  certainly  inconsiderable.  Yet 
both  Harvard  and  Yale  would  be  slow  in  provoking  a 
comparison  between  themselves  and  Leipsic.  To  what, 
then,  must  we  look  for  the  explanation  of  this  dispro- 
portion in  America  between  the  outlay  and  the  results 
effected  ?  In  part,  but  only  in  a  small  part,  to  the  rela- 
tively higher  figures  of  professors'  salaries  in  America. 
Each  one  of  the  full  professors  at  Harvard  receives 
$4,000  a  year,  I  believe.  At  Yale,  the  salaries  are  very 
nearly  as  high.  No  one  will  have  the  shabbiness  to 
assert  that  the  pay  is  too  high.  As  a  class,  American 
professors  are  insufficiently  recompensed.  After  years 
of  toil  and  annoyance,  they  can  be  thankful  if  they  are 
able  to  keep  themselves  and  their  families  out  of  debt. 
Were  the  salary  of  every  professor  doubled,  the  increase 
would  be  nothing  more  than  justice.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  why  professors,  who  are  men  of  ability  and 
culture,  who  devote  themselves  unselfishly  to  the  best 
interests  of  the  nation,  should  not  be  paid  as  liberally  as 
our  best  lawyers  and  physicians,  why  the  guardians  of 
the  spiritual  interests  of  men  should  fare  worse  than 
those  who  look  merely  after  their  bodies  and  estates.  It 
is  not  more  than  six  years  ago  that  the  president  of 
Harvard  was  forced  to  admit  in  public  that  his  senior 


346  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

professor  received  less  than  the  chief  cook  of  the  Parker 
House !  Things  have  been  bettered  since  then,  but  they 
have  not  been  radically  cured. 

Now  for  this  state  of  affairs  the  party  chief  in  respon- 
sibility is  the  college  itself.  Not  Harvard,  nor  Yale,  nor 
Princeton,  nor  Cornell  alone,  but  the  spirit  of  our  college 
system.  We  have  been  misled  by  rivalry  into  copying  after 
England  in  the  feature  that  is  least  worthy  of  imitation. 
I  mean  —  buildings !  Had  the  money  which  has  been 
sunk  in  brick  and  stone  and  mortar  during  the  past 
twenty  years  been  judiciously  invested,  the  salary  of  every 
professor  in  America  might  be  doubled  at  this  moment. 
If  this  assertion  sounds  extravagant,  the  reader  has  only 
to  scrutinize  carefully  the  condition  of  any  one  of  our 
colleges,  to  note  the  amount  of  money  expended  upon 
costly  edifices,  and  then  to  judge  for  himself  whether 
that  amount,  if  placed  at  interest,  would  not  add  at  least 
fifty  per  cent  to  the  annual  income.  What  are  the 
buildings  necessary  for  keeping  up  a  college?  Those 
which  contain  the  libraries  and  apparatus,  and  the  rooms 
suitable  for  lectures  and  recitations.  Whatever  goes 
beyond  this,  is  superfluous.  We  may  derive  some  whole- 
some lessons  on  the  point  from  examining  into  the  conduct 
of  the  German  government  in  re-establishing  the  univer- 
sity of  Strassburg.  Although  barely  three  years  have 
elapsed  since  the  annexation  of  Alsace,  the  university 
has  a  full  staff  of  eighty  professors,  and  a  body  of  six 
hundred  students.  Yet  the  university  of  Strassburg  has 
not  at  this  day  a  single  building  that  it  can  properly  call  its 


COMPARISON  WITH  AMERICA. 


own.  To  estimate  such  a  policy  of  organization  with  due 
regard  to  its  extraordinary  singleness  of  view,  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  it  was  not  induced  by  stint  of  funds. 
Prince  Bismarck,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Empire  and 
Administrator  of  the  Imperial  Provinces,  had  carte 
blanche.  Probably  no  man  since  the  days  of  Cardinal 
Wolsey  enjoyed  a  like  opportunity  of  immortalizing  him- 
self in  stained  glass  and  stone.  The  French  indemnity 
money  was  pouring  into  the  German  coffers  in  a  steady 
stream,  Germany  was  wild  over  its  sudden  accession  to 
wealth.  It  would  have  cost  but  a  word  from  the  Prince 
to  divert  a  paltry  fraction,  say  twenty  of  the  thousand 
millions,  to  the  glory  of  German  architects  and  the 
greater  glory  of  the  unificator  of  his  country.  But  the 
Prince  knew  too  well  what  he  was  undertaking.  He 
knew  that  the  strength  of  a  university  does  not  consist  in 
its  array  of  dead  buildings,  but  in  its  force  of  live  men, 
that  the  ultimate  test  of  the  capacity  of  a  university  is 
its  ability  to  pay  professors.  So  the  Prince  quietly  let 
the  twenty  millions  take  their  natural  course  into  the 
imperial  treasury,  and  contented  himself  with  organizing 
the  Strassburg  university  after  the  model  of  all  the 
others,  to  wit,  as  an  unobtrusive  congregation  of  emi- 
nent men  in  the  receipt  of  good  salaries.  For  the  mere 
appliances  and  paraphernalia  of  learning,  for  permanent 
laboratories,  library  buildings,  botanical  gardens  and  the 
like,  he  trusted  to  the  future,  and  to  the  general  principle 
that,  given  the  skilled  artisan,  the  workshop  will  follow 
of  itself. 


348  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Will  it  be  necessary  to  descant  upon  the  painful  con- 
trast afforded  by  our  colleges,  to  show,  instance  by 
instance,  how  we  have  spent  our  money  upon  the  work- 
shop, until  we  have  none  left  wherewith  to  pay  the 
workman  ?  The  city  of  Philadelphia  expended  two 
millions  of  dollars  upon  Girard  College.  It  succeeded  in 
erecting  a  Grecian  temple  that  is  the  wonder  of  the 
tourist  and  the  terror  of  the  teacher.  After  years  of 
tinkering  and  patching,  the  rooms  are  even  now  scarcely 
suited  to  the  purposes  of  instruction,  and  the  instructors 
themselves  are  scantily  paid. 

Instead  of  scattering  my  remarks  over  a  number  of  col- 
leges, permit  me  to  concentrate  them  upon  that  one  with 
which  I  am  most  familiar,  namely,  Cornell.  Much  has 
been  bruited  about  of  late  as  to  Mr.  Cornell's  dishonesty. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  charges  were  completely  dis- 
proved by  the  Committee  of  Investigation  in  their  report, 
but  it  may  not  be  surperfluous  to  add  that  nobody  con- 
nected with  the  university  put  the  slightest  faith  in  the 
charges.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  a  matter  of  almost  public 
notoriety  in  Ithaca  that  Mr.  Cornell  was  at  one  time 
rather  embarrassed  in  his  finances,  in  consequence  of  the 
obligations  into  which  he  had  entered  gratuitously  for  the 
benefit  of  the  university..  There  is  not  the  shadow  of  a 
doubt  but  that  the  intentions  of  Mr.  Cornell  have  always 
been  strictly  honorable.  Yet  it  is  not  the  less  evident 
that  the  affairs  of  the  university  have  been  badly  man- 
aged from  the  outset.  Instead  of  beginning  on  a  modest 
scale,  and  developing  the  field  of  operation  gradually, 


COMPARISON  WITH  AMERICA.  349 

keeping  pace  with  the  growth  of  resources,  the  manag- 
ers of  the  university  started  it  in  extravagance  and  then 
conducted  it  with  the  most  humiliating  parsimony.  There 
was  but  one  object  for  which  money  seemed  to  be  forth- 
coming, and  that  object  was  ostentatious  architecture. 
The  Cascadilla  was  completed  and  the  North  and  South 
Universities  were  erected  at  an  expense  of  not  less  than 
$250,000.  Ample  accommodation  for  lectures  and  re- 
citations —  which  was  all  that  was  needed  —  could  have 
been  had  for  $75,000.  Furthermore,  instead  of  locating 
the  university  in  the  town  of  Ithaca,  where  it  would  have 
been  comparatively  accessible,  it  was  pitched  upon  the 
crest  of  a  hill  four  hundred  feet  high  and  exposed  to  the 
inclemency  of  the  weather.  By  dint  of  lavish  expendi- 
ture in  planting  trees,  it  is  possible  that  the  buildings  may 
be  sheltered,  in  the  course  of  a  generation,  from  the 
searching  east  winds.  But  nothing  can  ever  screen  them 
from  the  furious  northerly  and  westerly  gales  that  sweep 
across  the  lake  every  winter  and  .spring.  Only  one  who 
has  himself  struggled  for  half  a  mile  through  the  snow 
against  a  cutting  north-wester,  and  reached  his  lecture- 
room  half  blinded  and  benumbed,  scarcely  able  to  collect 
his  thoughts  or  to  keep  his  teeth  from  chattering  in  the 
presence  of  the  class,  will  appreciate  the  trials  of  our 
model  American  university  furnished  with  "  all  the  mod- 
ern improvements."  The  casual  visitor,  who  views 
the  grounds  on  a  pleasant  day  in  June  or  October, 
knows  nothing  of  all  this.  He  perceives  only  the  beauty 
of  the  landscape,  and  congratulates  the  university  on  its 
30 


350  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

admirable  location  !  The  expression,  as  I  have  heard 
it  again  and  again,  always  sounded  like  the  crudest  of 
friendly  mockeries.  A  fine  view  on  a  fine  day  is  but  a 
sorry  atonement  for  months  of  wearing  toil  and  exposure. 
How  shall  we  explain  this  mania,  peculiar  to  America,  of 
locating  public  institutions  on  hill-tops  ?  Is  it  that  the 
whole  world  may  see  what  feats  of  architecture  we  are 
capable  of,  crude  conglomerations  of  bald,  unrelieved 
lines,  distorted  chimneys,  unsymmetrical  windows,  or  do 
we  desire  the  votaries  of  knowledge  to  look  upon  her 
temple  as  an  Alpine  "  station  ?  " 

Had  Mr.  McGraw,  Mr.  Sage,  and  the  other  donors  given, 
not  buildings,  but  the  money  expended  on  buildings,  had 
the  university  husbanded  its  resources  and  lived  year  by 
year  within  its  income,  had  it  refrained  from  luxuries, 
such  as  high-priced  lectures  from  outsiders,  and  the  pur- 
chase of  questionable  libraries;  in  short,  had  the  univer- 
sity patterned  in  only  this  one  respect  of  economy  after 
the  German  universities  that  it  professes  to  regard  as  its 
beau  ideal,  its  available  capital  would  be  greater  than  it 
now  is  by  the  round  sum  of  one  million  dollars. 

Cornell  University  is  not  the  only  institution  that  has 
made  the  mistake.  Every  college  in  the  land  can  tell  the 
same  story  with  variations.  Harvard,  Yale,  Amherst, 
Dartmouth,  Princeton  and  the  others  have  received  dur- 
ing the  past  ten  years  many  handsome  donations,  but 
these  donations  have  come  usually  in  the  shape  of  build- 
ings. Few  of  the  donors  appear  to  have  stumbled  upon 
the  patent  fact  that  what  a  college  needs  in  the  first  place 


COMPARISON  WITH  AMERICA.  351 

is  money,  in  the  second  place  money,  in  the  last  place 
money,  or  upon  the  equally  patent  fact  that  every  build- 
ing entails  upon  the  college  additional  expenses.  A 
chapel  costing  $70,000  forces  the  college  to  an  annual 
outlay  of  $1,000  to  $2,000  for  repairs,  heating  and  attend- 
ance. Let  us  consider  the  most  common  form  of  dona- 
tion. A  friend  of college,  we  may  say,  wishes  to 

bestow  the  handsome  sum  of  $200,000.  Instead  of 
endowing  four  or  five  professorships,  thereby  directly 
relieving  the  college  from  so  much  pressure  on  its  gen- 
eral income,  he  erects  a  handsome  dormitory,  capable  of 
holding  fifty  students.  Each  student  pays  for  his  suite  of 
rooms  $250  per  annum,  an  excessive  amount  for  the  forty 
academic  weeks.  The  aggregate  rental  would  be  $12,500. 
From  this  are  to  be  deducted  the  expenses  for  insurance, 
repairs,  heating,  and  servants'  wages,  say  $3,000.  The 
net  yield  to  the  college,  then,  is  only  $9,500.  Whereas 
the  original  fund,  if  judiciously  invested,  would  have 
yielded  $14,000.  There  is  a  waste,  accordingly,  of 
$4,500,  to  say  nothing  of  the  extra  burden  of  worry  and 
responsibility  imposed  upon  the  college  authorities. 

Is  it  surprising  that  the  expense  of  collegiate  life 
should  have  increased  so  rapidly  within  five  years  ?  Our 
colleges  have  grown  rich  in  appearance,  but  in  reality 
they  are  little  better  off  than  they  were  fifteen  years  ago. 
They  have  added  one  stately  building  after  another,  they 
have  surrounded  their  students  with  objects  that  incite 
to  extravagance,  they  have  encouraged,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, an  almost  luxurious  style  of  living,  yet  they  are 


352  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


not  a  whit  more  independent  of  student  support.*  In 
fact,  they  have  been  forced  to  raise  their  tuition- 
charges.  The  Senatus  Academicus  of  Leipsic  could 
dismiss  five  hundred  students  at  a  blow,  without  cur- 
tailing the  regular  official  salary  of  any  one  of  its  pro- 
fessors by  so  much  as  a  penny.  I  doubt  whether  the 
American  college  can  be  found  that  would  venture  to 
send  away  twenty  of  its  students,  and  keep  them  away. 
The  truth  is  that  the  salaries  of  the  professors  depend 
too  much  upon  the  tuition-fees  paid  by  the  students. 
This  the  students  themselves  have  found  out,  and  they 
are  prepared  to  act  upon  it.  They  know  that  dormi- 
tories, chapels,  libraries,  laboratories,  by  whomsoever 
erected  in  the  first  place,  are  supported  by  the  tuition- 
fees  that  come  from  them.  They  hold  the  purse-strings, 
and  they  have  already  begun  to  assert  their  so  called 
rights. 

Intimately  connected  with  this  matter  of  economy  is 
the  further  one  of  discipline.  The  German  university 
court,  whenever  it  does  interfere,  is  inflexible ;  it  can 
afford  to  be.  Conscious  that  the  university  is  a  state 
institution,  and  that  the  government  is  pledged  directly 
to  its  support,  it  is  not  diverted  from  the  strictest  admin- 
istration of  justice  by  the  dread  of  diminishing  the 
income  derived  from  students.  The  vacillating  policy, 
the  alternate  spasms  of  laxity  and  strictness  that  mark 
the  course  of  discipline  in  an  American  college,  on  the 

*The  average  yearly  expenditure  of  the  class  of  1874  at  Yale  is  stated  at 
over  $1,000. 


COMPA RISON  WITH  AMERICA  353 

other  hand,  are  too  well  known  to  require  more  than  a 
mention.     Those  of  us  who  have  passed  or  are  passing 
through  college  know  that  such  a  thing  as  strict,  even- 
handed  justice  does  not  exist  for  students.     Private  fail- 
ings are  punished  with  too  much  severity,  public  disorder 
with  too  little,  and  in  general  there  is  a  want  of  fixity  of 
purpose.     The  quality  of  the  discipline  varies  from  term 
to  term,  even  from  week  to  week.      I  remember  the  in- 
stance  where  two    students,  room-mates,  arraigned    for 
precisely  the  same  offense,  were  punished,  one  by  sus- 
pension for  three  months,  the  other  by  suspension  for  six. 
The  secret  of  the  difference  was  that  they  were  not  trie 
at  the  same  faculty  meeting.     Not  one  of  those  professors 
who  voted  for  the  respective  sentences   perceived   the 
gross  injustice  of  the  discrimination  until  attention  was 
directed  to  it  by  myself,  as  registering  clerk  of  the  fac- 
ulty.    It  is  not  my  object  to  discuss  the  grave  question 
of  public  disorder  and  the  proper  way  of  meeting  it,  for 
I  believe  that   there  is  only  one  way,  not  attainable  at 
present,  and  that  way  lies  in  the  absolute  monetary  inde- 
pendence of  the  college  itself.     Until  professors'  salaries 
can  be  secured  by  better  means  than  precarious  student- 
support,  we  have  no  right  to  expect  a  thorough  reform. 
Professors  are  after  all  only  men.     Situated  as  they  are, 
they  cannot  afford  to  be   stricter,  they  must  temporize, 
must  yield  here  and  there  to  student  clamor  and  to  in- 
veterate traditions  and  prejudices.     At  the  same  time,  I 
cherish  the  belief  that  it  is  possible  to  effect  at  least  a 
partial  reform,  by  changing  the  mode  of  administering 


354  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

discipline.  The  change  would  consist  in  abolishing  the 
present  cumbersome  faculty-meetings  and  in  lodging  the 
entire  control  in  the  hands  of  the  president  and  say  two 
advisers.  A  college  faculty,  to  speak  the  plain,  unvarnished 
truth,  is  a  body  without  a  soul,  without  a  sense  of  respon- 
sibility, for  the  simple  reason  that  the  individual  is  lost  in 
the  multitude.  It  is  impossible  to  obtain  from  an  aggrega- 
tion of  twenty  or  thirty  men  anything  like  uniformity  of 
action.  The  whole  is  broken  up  into  groups,  or  cliques, 
which  do  not  act  in  concert,  and  according  as  one  or  the 
other  of  such  cliques  may  be  present  on  a  given  occasion, 
the  voting  will  be  decided  one  way  or  the  other.  Further- 
more, college  professors,  as  a  class,  have  loose  notions  as 
to  what  is  really  evidence,  and  what  is  not.  Although 
sitting  as  judges,  they  have  not  received  a  legal  training. 
They  are  determined  in  their  opinions  only  too  often  by 
hearsay,  vague  rumors,  and  general  reputation.  Finally, 
their  functions  are  too  heterogeneous.  They  are  in  direct 
conflict  with  the  cardinal  principle  of  Anglo-Saxon  jus- 
tice, to  wit,  the  separation  of  legislative  powers  and 
judicial. 

The  college  faculty  enacts  laws  and  regulations,  and 
then  proceeds  to  carry  them  out,  not  infrequently  legisla- 
ting ex  post  facto.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  evil  might  be 
remedied  by  diminishing  the  number  of  faculty-meetings 
to  one  a  month,  and  by  restricting  the  action  of  the  faculty 
to  the  discussion  and  adoption  of  general  measures.  The 
carrying  out  of  those  measures  could  be  intrusted  to  a 
select  Executive  Committee,  consisting  of  the  president 


COMPARISON  WITH  AMERICA.  .355 

and  two  professors  (chosen  with  regard  to  their  legal  at- 
tainments) and  responsible  directly  to  the  trustees. 
Without  claiming  for  such  a  tribunal  infallibility,  I  am 
confident  that  it  would  have  at  least  the  following  merits. 
It  would  expedite  matters  wonderfully.  None  but  the 
members  of  a  college  faculty  can  estimate  the  amount  of 
time  wasted  in  mere  parley.  Three  men  will  accomplish 
as  much  in  an  hour  as  twenty  men  in  an  entire  afternoon. 
In  the  next  place,  the  rulings  of  a  tribunal  of  three  would 
be  uniform.  Each  member  would  be  bound  inflexibly 
by  his  previous  action.  And  in  the  third  place,  there 
would  be  personal  responsibility ;  students,  parents,  trus- 
tees, and  outsiders  would  know  whom  to  hold  accountable. 
Under  the  present  system,  the  burden  of  responsibility  is 
shifted  from  man  to  man,  and  the  student  who  may  feel 
himself  aggrieved  is  never  at  a  loss  for  pretexts  for  raising 
the  cry  of  injustice.  There  is  no  risk  run  in  impugning 
the  decisions  of  a  faculty  of  twenty,  but  to  attack  a  com- 
mittee of  three  is  a  step  from  which  the  ordinary  student 
would  shrink.  The  establishment  of  an  Executive  Com- 
mittee, as  indicated  above,  would  introduce  a  healthier 
tone  of  feeling  between  faculty  and  students,  and  would 
rid  the  professorial  vocation  of  manv  trials  and  annoy- 
ances. 


356 


GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


Prague 1348 


1356 
1386 
1388] 
1392] 
1402 


VIII. 

Statistics  of  the  German  Universities. 

The  following  table  will  show  the  respective  ages  of 
the  universities  of  Germany  : 

[Helmstadt 1576] 

[Altdorf 1578] 

[Herborn 1584] 

Graz 1586 

Giessen 1607 

[Paderborn 1616] 

[Rinteln     1621] 

Salzburg 1622 

[Osnabrlick 1632] 

[Bamberg 1649] 

[Duisburg 1655] 

Kiel 1665 

Innsbruck 1677 

Halle 1694 

Breslau 1702 

Gbttingen 1734 

[Fulda 1734] 

Erlangen    1743 

[Stuttgart 1781] 

Bonn 1 786 

Berlin 1809 

Munich...  ..  iSafi 


Vienna 

Heidelberg 

[Cologne 

[Erfurt 

Wurzburg 

Leipsic 1409 

Rostock 1418 

"[Trier 1454] 

Greifswald 1456 

Freiburg  (in  Baden) 1456 

Ingolstadt    1472 

Tubingen 1477 

[Menz 1477] 

[Wittenberg 1502] 

[Frankfort-on-the-Oder  .......  1506] 

Marburg  1527 

Strassbarg 1538 

Kbnigsberg 1544 

[Dillingen 1549] 

Jena 1558 

LOlmutz 1567] 


The  names  inclosed  thus  [  ]  designate  universities 
that  no  longer  exist.  By  "  Germany  "  is  meant  the  old 
German-Roman  Empire  of  the  Middle  Ages,  embracing 
parts  of  Switzerland,  Eastern  France,  Bohemia,  and  the 
Austrian  duchies.  A  glance  at  the  above  list  will  reveal 
the  striking  preponderance  of  South  Germany  over  North 
(iermanyin  culture  and  in  educational  facilities,  until 
comparatively  recent  times.  Since  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  seat  of  intellectual  activity  has 
been  transferred.  We  see  following  one  another  in  rapid 


STATISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.      357 

succession  the  renowned  series :  Breslau,  Gottingen,  Er- 
langen,  Bonn,  Berlin.  Catholic  Germany  has  been 
distanced  by  Protestant.  Another  point  of  interest  is  the 
number  of  universities  that  have  gone  under :  no  less 
than  eighteen.  This  tendency  to  slough  off  the  sicklier, 
effete  members,  and  to  concentrate  the  resources  of 
higher  education  still  exists,  but  not  in  an  active  form.  It 
is  among  the  possibilities  that  Giessen  and  Marburg  may 
be  fused  into  one ;  also  Rostock  and  Greifswald.  Now 
that  railroad  communication  has  facilitated  travel,  and 
Germany  is  consolidated  into  a  compact  realm  under 
one  system  of  imperial  administration,  the  petty  German 
princes  can  no  longer  aspire  to  have  each  his  own 
Landesuniversitat. 

The  following  tables  show  the  respective  numbers, 
first,  of  the  faculties,  next,  of  the  students,  at  the  existing 
universities.  The  figures  are  taken  from  the  Universitats- 
Kalender  for  the  summer  of  1874. 


, 


358 


GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


FACULTY. 

c 
•3 

0 

8 

(X 

Prof,  extraord. 

u 
o 

| 

2 
£ 

Privatdoc  ,  etc. 

Instructors,  Fencing 
masters,  etc. 

3 

& 

I.  German  Empire, 
Berlin                                              

55 

4 

5 

'?8 

Bonn  .                             

c6 

25 

16 

Breslau                     

20 

8 

106 

Erlangen 

Freiburg  (Baden) 

,8 

g 

Giessen 

6 

eg 

Gbttingen 

108 

Greifswald 

76 

eg 

Halle. 

*  •  •  . 

Heidelberg  

26 

Jena 

C" 

Kiel 

•58 

60 

Kb'nigsberg 

•  6 

g 

.  .  •  . 

16 

Leipsic        .        ... 

,6 

Marburg   

3 

64 

Munich  

66 

Rostock  

26 

6 

Strassburg  

6 

83 

Tubingen  

80 

W  iirzburg  »  

08 

X4 

62 

II.  German  Austria. 
Graz  

67 

Innsbruck  

6 

Prague 

c6 

26 

Vienna  . 

82 

78 

5 

226 

STATISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.      359 


STUDENTS. 
(Winter  1873-4.) 

THEOLOGY. 

2 

9 

rt' 

Medicine,  Pharmacy. 

Philosophy. 

Total  matriculated. 

Non-matric.  attend- 
ants at  Lectures. 

_• 
• 

2 
£ 

5 

Protestant. 

Catholic. 

Jurispr.,Cameral 

I.  German  Empire. 
Berlin                      

173 
57 
65 
178 

ii 

no 
94 

86 

560 
243 
337 
41 
48 

99 
286 
75 
159 
273 
73 
19 

202 

1012 
51 
*58 
38 
I56 
I7I 
104 

347 
116 
822 

1442 

333 
137 
168 
156 
105 
86 
154 
287 
146 
82 
74 
57 
161 

559 
145 
402 
30 
165 
*77v 
499' 

296 

102 
472 

997 

691 
266 
423 
7° 
45 
142 
459 
138 
494 
204 
132 
40 
185 
906 
168 
409 
3i 
195 
81 
126 

189 
179 
336 
7°3 

1757 
813 
1087 
445 
284 
338 

1000 

528 

1018 
585 
358 
169 
607 
2876 
418 
"43 
135 
564 
814 
872 

895 
563 
1771 

3307 

1816 
35 
19 

5 
27 
18 

12 
22 

55 
18 
36 
10 
64 
15 
17 

36 
9 

80 
78 
40 
506 

3573 
848 
1106 
445 
289 
365 
1018 
540 
1040 
640 

376 
205 
617 
2940 

433 
1160 

135 
600 

823 

872 

975 
641 
1811 
3813 

Bonn  . 
Breslau 

Erlangen 

Freiburg  

Giessen 

Gb'ttingen  
Greifswald  . 

IOI 

28 

Halle  
Heidelberg  

219 
26 
79 
53 
59 
399 
54 

74 

132 
143 

63 

1  66 
141 
165 

Jena 

Kiel   .... 

KiJnigsberg.  .  .  .         .... 

Leipsic 

Marburg  

Munich  

Rostocic  

36 
48 

253 

Strassburg  
Tubingen 

Wurzburg  

II.  German  Austria. 
Graz  

Innsbruck  

Prague 

Vienna. 

GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


The  following  list,  taken  from  the  official  catalogue  of 
Leipsic  for  the  winter  of  1873-4,  gives  the  analysis  of 
the  body  of  students  of  that  university. 


O 

4> 

c 

O 

0) 

c 

t*% 

•o 

0> 

0 

aj 

D. 

'So 

n 

(4 

3 

..-• 

0 

1 

'3 

CJ 

s 

S 

O 

,0 

1 

3 

1 

1 

X 

c 

ri 

.j 

,2 

T> 

£ 

•£ 

•c 

e 

3 

3 

4) 

£ 

£ 

fi 

1 

g 

1 

b£ 

0 

3 

I.  German  Empire. 

Anhalt  

5 

5 

8 

i 

3 

2 

6 

2 

i 

33 

Baden 

i 

7 

i 

i 

2 

3 

TC 

Bavaria  

18 

9 

8 

i 

I 

I 

4 

i 

I 

i 

•••D 

45 

Brunswick  

4 

8 

6 

i 

2 

8 

i 

5 

35 

Bremen            

i 

3 

i 

2 

i 

i 

i 

IO 

Bvickeburg 

i 

i 

Alsace-Lorraine  

2 

I 

i 

4 

Hamburg  

4 

10 

4 

2 

2 

2 

5 

i 

2 

32 

Hesse-  Darmstadt 

2 

3 

- 

2 

I 

_ 

Lauenburg  

I 

I 

Lippe         

3 

i 

2 

I 

I 

Lxibeck  

2 

I 

Meckle'g-Schwerin, 

I7 

14 

6 

5 

8 

3 

7 

60 

Meckle'g-Strelitz... 

4 

5 

3 

i 

2 

15 

Oldenburg           .  .   . 

A 

A 

I 

2 

i 

22 

Prussia  

AVQ 

156 

66 

64 

44 

3 

TOQ 

OO 

18 

I  I4Q 

Reuss 

T"* 

IO 

LJ>7 

99 

1  l^U 

Saxony  (Kingdom). 

114 

333 

141 

44 

56 

20 

60 

73 

32 

24 

ii 

908 

Saxe-Altenburg  

9 

12 

2 

2 

3 

3 

4 

35 

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 

i 

6 

I 

I 

i 

.. 

4 

i 

15 

Saxe-Meiningen.  .  .  . 

8 

8 

2 

3 

i 

7 

3 

32 

Saxe-  Weimar  

i 

14 

3 

i 

I 

5 

5 

i 

i 

32 

Schwarzburg.  .. 

3 

7 

I 

3 

3 

3 

i 

5 

24 

Waldeck  

2 

2 

Wiirtemburg  

2 

10 

17 

3 

i 

i 

33 

362 

898 

370 

"* 

.4- 

84 

74 

287 

78 

97 

41 

2551 

STATISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.      361 


Theology. 

Jurisprudence. 

Medicine. 

Pharmacy. 

Nat.  Science. 

>, 

JS 

0. 

Pedagogics. 

Philology. 

Mathematics. 

Agriculture. 

Cameralia. 

•3 
5 
H 

II.  Other  European 
States. 
Denmark 

i 

2 

7 
IS 
7 
5 
96 

12 

71 

3 

45 

10 

France  . 

i 

i 

2 

Great  Britain 

Italy  

i 

3 

i 

1 

i 

Holland  

2 

2 

Austria  

13 

17 

7 

12 

18 

2 
12 

i 

5 

13 

2 

i 

12 

•• 

15 

Roumania  

Russia 

' 

2 

4 
i 

IS 

X 

9 

7 

i 

8 

Sweden,  Norway  .. 

Switzerland 

13 

II 

2 

2 

5 

Turkey  

III.  Non-European 
States. 
North  America  
Brazil  

27 

54 

47 

5 

21 

4i 

5 

32 

X 

29 

ii 

273 

8 

7 

8 

4 

ii 

6 

X 

45 
i 
-    i 

X 

4 

Venezuela  

•• 

z 

Japan  

Africa  

Recapitulation. 
I.  German  Empire 
II.  Oth.  Euro.  Stat. 
III.  Non-Euro.  Stat. 

xo 

8 

12 

•• 

4 

ii 

6 

I 

5« 

362 
27 

10 

399 

898 
54 
8 

960 

370 

47 

12 

429 

«S 
5 

130 

141 

21 

4 
166 

84 
4i 
ii 

136 

74 
5 

79 

287 
32 
6 


325 

78 

I 
I 

80 

9i 
29 

120 

4i 
ii 

52 

2551 
273 
52 

2876 

31 


362  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

The  Leipsic  catalogue  for  the  winter  of  1872-3  an- 
nounced the  following  schedule  of  studies.  The  figures 
in  (  )  denote  the  number  of  hours  per  week. 

I.  THEOLOGY. 

i.  Full  Professors. 
Fr.  Delitsch  —  Biblical  Theology  of   the  O.  T.  (4  h.) ; 

Interpretation  of  the  Minor  Prophets  (4  h.) ;  Grammar 

of  Biblical  Chaldee  (2  h.) ;  Hebraicum  (i  h.). 
Kahnis — History  of  Dogma  (6  h.) ;  Eccles.  Hist,  of  the 

Later  Middle  Ages  (2  h.) ;  Symbolic  (4  h.) ;  Practical 

Exercises  of  Theol.  Soc'y  (3  h.). 
Luthardt — Dogmatics  (6  h.);    Interpret,  of  St.    John's 

Gospel  (4  h.) ;  Introd.  to  Dogmatics  (2  h.) ;  Exercises 

of  the  Soc'y  for  Dogmatics  (2  h.). 
Lechler  —  Church   History  since   Gregory   VII.  (6  h.) ; 

Interpretation  of  Ep.  of   St.   Peter  (2   h.) ;  Practical 

Exerc.  in  Church  History  (2  h.). 
Fricke — Life  of  Christ  accord,  to  Four  Gospels,  with 

Prefatory  Criticism  of  the  Gospels  (4  h.)  ;  Interpret,  of 

the    Messianic  Proph.  of  O.  T.  (3  h.);  Interpret,   of 

Paul  to  Galatians  (2  h.);  Soc'y  for  Exegesis  of  O.  T. 

and  N.  T.  (2  h.). 
Tischendorf — Interpret,  of  Epistle  to  Romans  (4  h.); 

Interpret,  of  the  Parenetic  Parts  of  Ep.  to  Romans 

(*  M. 

Baur  —  Practical   Theology  (i   h.) ;  German    Lit.  from 
Klopstock  to  Present  Day,  in  its  Relations  to  Religion 


STA  TISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.      363 

and  the  Church  (3  h.) ;  Exercises  of  Homiletic  Seminar 

(2  h.). 
Hofmann  —  Practical    Theology    (6    h.) ;     Evangelical 

Pedagogic  and  its  History  (4  h.) ;  Exerc.  of  Seminar 

for  Catechetic  and  Pedagogic. 
H'olemann  —  Interpret,  of  Job  (4  h.)  ;  Soc'y  for  Exegesis 

of  O.  T.  and  N.  T.,  Disputations,  etc.,  in  Latin  (2  h.). 

2.  Assistant-Professors. 
W.Schmidt — Interpret,  of  I.   and   II.  Corinth.  Uh.); 

Hermeneutics  of  N.   T.   (2  h.) ;  Soc'y  for  Catechetic 

(2  h.). 
Cl.  Brockhaus  —  Archaeology  of  Christian  Art  (2  h.). 

3.  Privatdocenten. 

ScKurer—\\te  and  Teachings  of  St.  Paul  (2  h.). 
Joh.  Delitsch  —  History  of  the  Doctrine  concerning  the 
Person  of  Christ  (2  h.). 

II.  JURISPRUDENCE. 

i.  Full  Professors. 

Muller —  Common  and  Statute  Law  of  Saxony  (10  h.); 
Practicum  for  Saxon  Law  (2  h.) ;  Exegeticum  (2  h.). 

Wachter — Pandects  (10  h.) ;  Theory  of  Possession  (2  h.). 

Hanel — Sources  of  the  Roman  Law  (2  h.) ;  Criminal 
Procedure  accord,  to  R.  L.  (2  h.). 

Osterloh — Civil  Procedure  ace.  to  Comm.  Law  of  Ger- 
many and  Saxony  (10  h.);  Practicum  in  Procedure 
(2  h.);  Relatorium  (2  h.). 


364  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Heinze — German  Crim.  Law  (7  h.);  History  and  System 

of  Legal  Philos.  (4  h.) ;  Internat.  Law  (2  h.) ;  Seminar 

for  Crim.  Law  Practice  (2  h.). 
A.  Schmidt — Pandects  (12  h.);    Institutes  and  Hist,  of 

Rom.  Law  (6  h.). 
Fried  berg  —  Hist,  of  German  Law  (4  h.) ;  German  Const. 

Law  (4  h.) ;  Commercial  Law  (3  h.). 
Kuntze — History  of  Rom.  Law  (6  h.);  Commercial  Law 

(incl.  Insurance)   (4  h.);    Exegesis  of  Passages  from 

Digest  (2  h.). 
Stobbe  —  German  Common    Law,   excl.   of    Commercial 

Law(yh.);    Eccles.  Law  (4h.);  Exercises  in  Germ. 

Law  (2  h.). 
Schletter  —  Crim.   Procedure   accord,  to  Comm.  Law  of 

Germany  and  Saxony  (4  h.) ;  Law  relating  to  Public 

Officials  (4  h.). 

2.  Assistant-Professors. 

Weiske  —  Mining  Law. 

H'bck  —  History  of  German  Const.  Law  (6  h.) ;  Com- 
mercial Law  (6  h.) ;  Obligations,  accord,  to  Germ. 
Law  (2  h.). 

G'btz  —  Commercial  Law  (2  h.);  Property  Law  (2  h.). 

Voigt —  Institutes  and  Hist,  of  Rom.  Law  (10  h.)  ; 
Encyclopaedy  of  Law  (3  h.). 

Nissen  —  Practicum  for  Civil  Procedure  (2  h.) ;  for  Crim. 
Procedure  (3  h.). 

Lueder  —  Criminal  Law  (7  h.) ;  Agricult.  Law  (3  h.). 


STATISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES 


III.  MEDICINE. 

I.  Full  Professors. 
Radius  —  Pharmacy  (4  h.)  ;  Public  and  Private  Hygiene 

(2    h.)- 

Weber — Organs  of  Hearing  in  the  Amphibia  (3  h.). 

Wunderlich  —  Medical  Clinic  (9  h.)  ;  Pathol.  and  Therap. 
of  Acute  Constit.  Diseases  (4  h.). 

Crede  —  Gynecological  and  Obstetrical  Clinic  (7  h.) ; 
Practical  Exercises  in  Obstetrics,  with  Manikin  (4  h.) ; 
Obstetrical  Demonstrations  (2  h.). 

Wagner  —  Spec.  Pathol.  Anatomy  (7  1-2  h.)  :  Pathologic- 
histological  Exercises  (5  h.) ;  Exerc.  in  Pathol.  Insti- 
tute (4  h.  daily)  ;  Medical  Polyclinic  (5  h.). 

Ludwig  —  Physiol.  of  Organs  of  Sensation  and  Locomo- 
tion (5  h.) ;  Physiol.  Consultat.  (2  h.) ;  Exercises  in 
Physiol.  for  Advanced  Students. 

Thiersch  —  Surgical  Clinic  (9  h.)  ;  Surgery  (4  h.). 

Coccius —  Ophthalm.  Clinic  (6  h.) ;  Pathol.  Optics  (2  h.) ; 
Internal  Inflam.  of  Eye  (2  h.). 

His — Systemat.  Human  Anat.  (10  h.)  ;  Dissecting  (8  h. 
daily). 

Braune  —  Army  Practice  (2  h.)  ;  Operations  (4  h.)  ;  Dis- 
secting (for  those  attending  Clinics)  (4  h.  daily) ; 
Topograph.  Anatomy  (2  h.). 

Czermak  —  Introduction  to  Physiology  (Public  Lecture) 

V 


366  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES, 

2.  Assistant-Professors. 

Bock  —  Diagnostic  Phenomenology. 

Sonmnkalb  —  Practicum  for  those  entering  State  Service 
(3  h.)  ;  Medical  Jurisprudence  (4  h.). 

Carus —  Comparat.  Anatomy  of  Vertebrates  (4  h.) ;  Com- 
parat.  Osteology  (2  h.)u;  Comparat.  Anat.  and  Physiol. 
of  Domest.  Animals  (4  h.). 

Germann  —  Diseases  of  Women  (2  h.). 

Hennig  —  Examinatorium  in  Obstetrics  (6  h.);  Pediatric 
Clinic  (2  h.). 

Reclam  —  Med.  Jurispr.  (2  h.)  ;  Alimentary  Substances 
(2  h.) ;  Exercises  in  Hygienic  Investigations  (2  h.). 

Merkel  —  Physiol.  of  Human  Voice  (principally  for  Phi- 
lologists) (2  h.) ;  Laryngiatric  Polyclinic  (3  h.). 

B.  Schmidt — Surgical  Polyclinic  (6  h.) ;  Vivisection 
(2  h.)  ;  Hernia  (i  h.). 

Thomas  —  Exercises  in  Physical  Diagnosis  (2  h.)  ;  Poly- 
clinic (3  h.). 

Schwalbe  —  Use  of  Microscope  (i  h.) ;  Anat.  of  Brain 
and  Spine  (2  h.) ;  Exercises  with  Microscope  (courses 
of  6  h.  each) 

3.  Privatdocenten. 

Meissner — Obstetrics  with  Reference  to  Jurisprudence 

(2  h.)  ;  Pract.  Exerc.  in  Obstetrics. 
Haake — Exercises  in  Obstetrics,  with  Manikin  (3  h.); 

Intra-uterine  Therapeut.  (i  h.). 
Naumann — Pharmaco-dynamics  (2  h.) ;  Medical  Baths 

(i  h.). 


STA  TISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.      367 

Hagen — Otiatric     Polyclinic     (12    h.) ;    Laryngoscopy, 

Pharyngoscopy,  and  Rhinoscopy  (2  h.) ;    Galvanism 

Applied  to  the  Ear  (2  h.). 
Wendt —  Polyclinic  for  Diseases  of  Ear  (9  h.). 
Friedlander  —  Constitut.  Diseases  (4  h.). 
Kormann  —  Examinatorium   for  Obstetrics   (courses    of 

36  hours  each). 
Wenzel —  Repetitorium   for    Human    Anatomy    (6    h.) ; 

Anatomy  for  Non-medical  Students  (2  h.). 
Siegel — Public    Hygiene    (2    h.) ;    Medical    Jurisprud. 

(2   h.). 

Heubner  —  Clinical  Propaedeutics  (3  h.);  Special  Pathol- 
ogy and  Therap.  (6  h.) ;  Electro-diagnosis  and  Electro- 
therapeut.  (2  h.). 

Hufner — Physiol.  Chemistry  (2  h.) ;  Analysis  of  Ani- 
mal Tissues  and  Humors. 

L.  Furst — Diseases  of  Children  (2  h.) ;  Propaedeutics 
of  Obstetrics  (i  h.) ;  Pediatric  Polyclinic  (3  h.). 

IV.  PHILOSOPHY. 
i.  Full  Professors. 

Overbeck  —  Greek  Mythology  in  Art  (5  h.)  ;  Explanation 
of  Select  Spec,  of  Antique  Art  (3  h.) ;  Exerc.  of  Ar- 
chaeol.  Soc'y. 
Drobisch  —  Psychology    (5    h.) ;    Outlines   of  Perception 

(3  h.). 

Fechner  —  The  Interrelations  of  Body  and  Soul  (2  h.). 
Fleischer — Interpret,   of  the    Koran  (2    h.) ;  Introd.  to 

Study  of  Mod.  Arabic  Periodicals  (2  h.) ;  Interpret,  of 


368  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

the  Beharistan  of  Djami  (2  h.)  ;  Turkish  Syntax  (2  h.) ; 

Exerc.  of  the  Arabic  Soc'y. 
Roscher  —  Polit.  Economy  (4  h.) ;  Finance  (3  h.)  ;  Nat. 

Economy  and  Statistics  (2  h.). 
Brockhans  —  Interpretation  of  Epic  Passages  in  the  Ra- 

mayana  (2  h.) ;  Interpret,  of  Select  Hymns   from  the 

Rigveda  (4  h.). 

Wutt&e—Hist.  of  French  Revol.  (4  h.)  ;  Histor.    Semi- 
nar; Exam,  of  Essays,  and  Review  of  Sources  for  Hist 

of  Saxon  Dynasty  (3  h.). 
Hankel  —  Magnetism,  Electr.,  Heat   (6  h.)  ;   Terrestrial 

Magnetism  (2  h.). 
Zarncke  —  Grammar  and  Lit.  Hist,  of  Old  Norse  (4  h.)  ; 

Interpret,  of  Nibelungenlied  (6  h.) ;  Exerc.  of  Germa- 

nistic  Soc'y. 
Ahrens —  Logic  (4  h.)  ;  Fundam.  Doctr.  of  Ethics  (2  h.)  ; 

Theories   of  State   and  Administr.  (4  h.) ;  Exerc.  of 

Soc'y  for  Study  of  Government. 
Curtius —  Greek  Grammar  (4  h.)  ;  Grammat.  Soc'y  (2  h.) ; 

Exerc.  of  Philol.  Seminar  in  Interpret,  of  Odyssey,  etc. 

(2  h.). 
Masius  —  Hist,  of  Pedagogic  (4  h.)  ;  Schools  and  School 

Regul.  of  i6th  and  zyth  Cent,  (i  h.) ;  Pedag.  Seminar 

(2   h.). 

Ebert —  In  trod,    to   Compar.  Philol.  of  Romance  Lang. 

(3  h.)  ;    Provenzal  Gram,  and   Interpret,  of  Bartsch's 

Chrest.  Prov.  (2  h.). 
Ritschl —  Greek  and  Roman  Metres,  Hist,  of  Greek  Lyric 

Poetry  (4  h.)  ;    Interpret,  of  ^Eschylus  (in  Latin),  in 


STA  TISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.      369 

Philol.  Seminar  (2  h.) ;  Interpret,  of  Terence,  and  Lat. 
Disput.  in  Philol.  Soc'y  (2  h.). 

Kolbe  —  Organic  Chemistry  (4  h.) ;  Laborat.  Practice 
(7  h.  daily). 

G.  Voigt — History  of  German  Empire  from  Charle- 
magne to  Downfall  of  the  Hohenstaufen  (4  h.)  ;  Age 
of  Luther  and  Charles  V.  (2  h.)  ;  Histor.  Soc'y. 

Scheibner — Functions  of  the  Ellipse  (5  h.)  ;  Differ,  and 
Integral  Calc.  (4  h.). 

Sehcnk  —  Botan.  Physiol.  (3  h.)  ;  Fossil  Plants  (2  h.) ; 
Laborat.  Practice. 

Bruhns  —  Comets  and  Determ.  of  Courses  (3  h.)  ;  Spher. 
Trig,  and  Progr.  in  Applic.  to  Astron.  (2  h.). 

Neumann  —  Electrodynamics  (4  h.)  ;  Discuss,  of  Mathem. 
Exerc.(i  h.). 

Leuckart  —  Compar.  Anat.  (6  h.)  ;  Zoology  of  Vertebrates 
and  Origin  of  Species  (4  h.) ;  Labor.  Practice  (daily). 

JBlomeyer  —  Agriculture  (4  h.) ;  Plants  of  Commerce  (2 
h.)  ;  Law  of  Farming  (i  h.). 

Zirkel — Chem.  Geology  (i  h.) ;  Mineralogy  (6  h.) ; 
Laborat.  Practice. 

Wiedemann  —  Inorgan.  Chem.  (6  h.)  ;  Laborat.  Practice. 

Lange  —  Legal  Antiq.  of  Greece  (4  h.)  ;  Seminar •,  Inter- 
pret, of  Epistles  of  Horace,  Lat.  Disputat.  (2  h.); 
Roman  Archseol.  Soc'y  (2  h.). 

Peschel — Physical  Geography  (4  h.). 

Zbllner  —  Astron.  Physics  (4h.)  ;  Principles  of  Perception 
in  their  Relations  to  Nat.  Sciences  (2  h.). 


370  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Krehl —  Encyclopaedy  of  Semitic  Philol.  (4  h.) ;  Interpret. 

of  Arnold's  Arabic  Chrestom.  (2  h.). 
Strumpell —  Logic  (4  h.)  ;  Problems  of  Relig.  Phil.  (2  h.) ; 

Pedagog.  Exercises. 

2.  Assistant-Professors. 

Nobbe —  Odes  of  Horace  (2  h.) ;  Lat.  Disputat.  (2  h.).     . 

Marbach — Geom.  and  Trigonom.  (4  h.). 

Jacobi — Agriculture  (2  h.) ;  Cameralia  (i  h.)  ;  Discuss, 
of  Geogr.  and  Topograph.  Nomenclature  (i  h.). 

Wenck  —  Hist,  of  Germany  from  Westphalian  Peace  to 
Accession  of  Frederick  the  Great  (4  h.) ;  Hist,  of  Ger- 
many from  Accession  of  Rudolph  of  Habsburg  to  End 
of  i4th  Cent.  (2  h.). 

Fritzsche — Frogs  of  Aristophanes  (2  h.) ;  Latin  Style 
(2  h.) ;  Greek  Soc'y  (Aristotle's  Metaphysics) ;  Lat. 
and  Greek  Disputat. 

Hermann  —  Introd.  to  Phil,  and  Logic  (4  h.) ;  Aesthetics 
(4  h.)  ;  Criticism  of  Leading  Mod.  Systems  of  Philoso- 
phy (2  h.). 

Knop  —  Agricul.  Chem.  (4  h.) ;  Labor,  Practice. 

Minckwitz  —  Origin  and  Developm't  of  German  Lyric 
Poetry  (2  h.) ;  Origin  of  Homer.  Poems  (2  h.). 

Ziller — Psychology  (4  h.);  Phil,  of  Religion  (2  h.); 
Pedagog.  Seminar. 

Eckstein  —  Odes  of  Horace  explained  in  Latin  (3  h.) ; 
pedagog.  Seminar. 

Brandes —  Hist,  of  Central  Europe  in  Reformation  (2  h.) ; 
Hist  of  France  (2  h.) ;  Germanistic  Soc'y.  (i  h.). 


STA  TIS  TICS  OF  GERM  A  N  UNI  VERSITIE  S.      371 

Biedermann — German  Hist.  (1806-1871)  (2  h.)  ;  Hist. 

of  Germ.  Lit.  in  i8th  and  iQth  Cent.  (4  h.) ;  Nature 

and  Hist,  of  Drama  (2  h.). 

Hirzel —  Pharmacy  of  Inorganic  Preparat.  (2  h.). 
Seydel—  Hist,  of  Mod.  Philos.  (4  h.)  ;  Relations  of  Philos. 

and  Religion,  especially  since  Kant  (2  h.) ;    Philosoph. 

Soc'y. 
Pockert — Saxon  Hist.  (2  h.) ;  German  Hist,  since  West- 

phalian  Peace  (2  h.). 
Birnbaum  —  Cattle-Raising  (3  h.)  ;  Administr.  of  Estates 

(5  h.) ;  Import.  Questions  of  the  Day  (2  h.). 
Hildebrand — Germ.  Lit.  of  the  i8th  Cent.  (4  h.)  ;  Inter- 

.pretation  of  M.  H.  G.  poem  Meier  Helmbrecht  (2  h.). 
Knapp  —  Labor  Question  in  England,  France,  Germany 

(4  h.) ;  Pract.  Exerc.  in  Statistics  (2  h.). 
Lipsius  —  Thucydides,  Bk  II.   (4  h.) ;  Exerc.  of  Greek 

Archaeol.  Soc'y.  (2  h.). 

Ebers  —  Old  Egypt.  Grammar  (3  h.) ;  Interpret,  of  Pas- 
sages in  Genesis  and  Exodus  relating  to  Egypt.  (2  h.). 
Leskien —  Grammar  of  Church  Slavonic  (4  h.)  ;  Hist,  of 

Serbic-Croatic  Lang.  (2  h.). 
Credner  —  General    Geology    (5    h.);     Labor.  Practice 

(2  h.). 

Stohmann  —  Chem.  Technology  (3  h.). 
Mayer — Analyt.  Geom.  (4  h.)  ;  Mathem.  Exerc.  (i  h.) 
Zurn — Anatomy  of  the  Horse  (2  h.)  ;  Veterinary  Surgery 
(4  h.)  ;  Hygiene  of  Domestic  Animals  (i  h.). 


372  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


3.  Privatdocenten. 

Weiske —  Meteorology  (2  h.). 

O.  Delitsch  —  Methodology  of  Geogr.  Instruction  (2  h.)  ; 
Relatorium  in  Geography  (2  h.). 

Paul —  Musical  Art  of  Greek  Drama  (2  h.)  ;  Harmonics 
of  Mod.  Music,  etc.  (2  h.). 

Frank —  Natural  History  of  Fungi  (2  h.)  ;  Seeds  in  Agri- 
culture (2  h.). 

Muhll — Theory  of  Elasticity  (4  h.) ;  Potential  and 
Conic  Functions  (2  h.) ;  Mathem.  Exerc. 

Loth  —  Persian  (2  h.) ;  Encyclopaedy  of  Arabic  (2  h.). 

Carstanjen  —  Analyt.  Chem.  (4  h.). 

Schuchardt — Span.  Grammar  (3  h.)  ;  Ariosto  (i  h.). 

Englemann —  Planetary  Orbits  (2  h.) ;  Mechanical  Quad- 
rature (i  h.). 

Nitsche  —  Nat.  Hist,  and  Palseontol.  of  Molluscs  (2  h.) ; 
Developm't.  of  Invertebrates  (2  h.). 

Philippi — Thucydides  (3  h.)  ;  Hist,  of  Athens  (i  h.). 

ffirzel—Hist.  of  Greek  Philos.  (4  h.) ;  Interpret,  of 
Plato's  Phaedrus ;  Pract.  Exerc.  in  Aristotle's  Ethics. 

Sachsse  —  General  Agricult.  Chem.  (4  h.) ;  Repetitorium 
for  Analyt.  Chem.  (i  h.). 

Luerssen  —  Morphology,  Physiology  of  Algae,  Fungi,  etc. 
(3  M. 

Schuster — Hist,  of  Greek  Phil,  down  to  Aristotle;  Inter- 
pret, of  Plato's  Gorgias. 

Furst — (since    deceased)   Isaiah   (3   h.);    Pirke-Aboth 

(i  h.). 

Langer — General  Theory  of  Music  (2  h.);  Varieties  of 
Musical  Composit.  (2  h.). 


STATISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.     373 


I  have  selected  Leipsic  because  it  is,  beyond  question, 
the  leading  German  university  at  the  present  day.  The 
number  of  its  matriculated  students  exceeds  that  of  Ber- 
lin by  one  thousand,  and  falls  short  of  that  of  Vienna  by 
only  a  few  hundred.  Vienna  owes  its  large  numbers  to 
two  circumstances.  First,  it  is  the  only  seat  of  learning 
for  an  immense  district  measured  by  a  radius  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles,  whereas  Leipsic  is  in  the  heart  of 
Germany,  and  has  for  its  next-door  neighbors  Halle,  Jena, 
Berlin  and  Breslau.  Next,  the  medical  school  and  the 
hospitals  of  Vienna  are  the  most  renown'ed  in  the  world. 
If  we  deduct  the  excess  of  medical  students  of  Vienna 
over  Leipsic,  we  shall  find  that  in  the  other  departments 
the  latter  leads  the  former.  For  breadth  and  variety  of 
learning,  and  for  activity,  the  Leipsic  faculty  is  unrivaled. 
The  reader  who  is  in  any  degree  familiar  with  the  great 
movements  of  thought  will  have  no  difficulty  in  recogniz- 
ing in  the  above  list  of  professors  men  pre-eminent  in 
every  branch. 

Berlin  has  been  outstripped  in  the  last  ten  years.  This 
decline  of  the  university  that  was  once  foremost  has  been 
made  the  subject  of  much  discussion,  both  as  to  its 
causes  and  its  possible  cure.  The  most  obvious  cause  is 
the  enhanced  expense  of  living.  In  1863,  "only  eleven 
years  ago,  the  cost  of  living  was  moderate.  A  very 
good  room  could  be  obtained  for  eight  or  ten  thalers  a 
month.  This  was  more  than  the  rates  at  Gottingen,  yet 
not  much  more  than  the  rates  at  Heidelberg  and  Bonn. 
Other  items  of  living,  such  as  meals  and  clothing,  were 
32 


374  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

no  higher  than  they  were  elsewhere.  Now,  one  can  not 
obtain  a  tolerable  room  under  twenty-five  to  thirty  thalers 
a  month,  table-board  has  doubled  in  price,  clothing  also, 
and  the  general  tone  of  the  city  has  changed.  One  is 
victimized  at  every  turn.  So  long  as  Berlin  remained 
the  capital  of  the  obscure  kingdom  of  Prussia,  it  was  a 
quiet,  gemuthliche  city.  But  in  becoming  the  seat  of  the 
North  German  Confederation,  and  later  still  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  it  lost  its  former  simplicity  without  acquir- 
ing the  large-mindedness  of  a  world-centre  like  London 
or  Paris.  The  French  milliards  have  launched  the  Ber- 
linese  upon  a  career  of  wild  extravagance.  The  univer- 
sity plays  no  longer  the  same  important  part  that  it  did 
in  city  life.  Both  students  and  professors  feel  that  they 
are  pushed  to  the  wall  by  the  herds  of  nouveaux  riches^ 
by  stock-brokers,  contractors,  house-builders,  and  adven- 
turers. Yet  the  rise  in  prices  is  not  the  only  cause  of 
the  decline  of  the  university.  The  faculty  itself  is  in 
part  to  blame.  Like  not  a  few  other  institutions,  it  has 
lived  too  much  on  its  past  reputation.  Its  most  distin- 
guished professors  are  men  extremely  advanced  in  life, 
many  of  them  are  crotchety,  opinionated,  illiberal,  set  in 
their  ways,  and  unsympathetic.  They  hold  too  much 
aloof  from  the  spirit  of  the  times.  The  university  needs 
an  infusion  of  new  blood.  Yet  it  will  be  difficult  to  ob- 
tain such  an  infusion.  The  rising  celebrities  find  it  more 
advantageous  to  accept  a  call  to  Leipsic  or  Munich  or 
Strassburg,  where  the  salaries,  nominally  no  greater,  are 
in  reality  adequate  to  the  style  of  living,  and  where  they 


STATISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.      375 


can  exert  more  influence  I  doubt  whether  Berlin  will 
ever  overtake  Leipsic.  The  Saxon  government,  relieved 
from  the  responsibilities  of  political  action,  seems  to  be 
devoting  its  energies  and  its  resources  to  the  promotion 
of  more  spiritual  interests.  The  King  and  his  Ministers 
have  now  little  else  to  do  than  to  take  this  indirect  and 
laudable  revenge  upon  Prussia.  With  plenty  of  money 
at  their  command,  they  can,  to  use  a  mercantile  phrase, 
go  into  the  market  and  buy  up  whatever  is  best.  Leipsic 
is  slowly  but  surely  drawing  to  itself  the  young  men  of 
promise. 

To  complete  the  picture  of  the  Leipsic  university,  I 
give  the  following  tabular  statement  of  expenditure  and 
income  for  1873.  The  figures  were  graciously  furnished 
at  my  request  by  Professor  Zarncke  (Rector  in  1872), 
through  the  mediation  of  my  friend  Dr.  Felix  Fliigel. 

Private  Income  of  the  University. 

1.  From  buildings  and  rents  (shops  in  the 

city) 57>8n 

2.  From  Endowments  and  the  Faculty  Fiscus         36,942 

3.  Matriculation  and  other  Fees 8, 100 

102,853 

Expenditures. 

1.  Sinking  Fund i5>9°4 

2.  Expenses  in  carrying  out  terms  of  special 

bequests 672 

Carried  forward 16,576 


376 


GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 


Brought  forward 16,576 

3.  Salaries  of  Employees 18,618 

4.  Salaries  of  Professors, 

Theological  Faculty 18, 180 

Legal 28,308 

Medical 27,896 

Philosophical 83 , 479 

157*863 

5.  Apparatus     of     Instruction    (Laboratory, 

Library,  etc.) 99>773 

6.  General  Expenses,  Printing,  Pensions,  etc.  9,582 

7.  Student  Stipends 2,270 

8.  At  the  disposal  of  the  Ministry  (Contingent 

Fund) 10,  ooo 


Thalers 314,682 


Deducting  the  102,853  of  private  income,  there  is  an 
annual  deficit  of  211,829  thalers,  met  by  appropriations 
from  the  state  treasury.  Of  the  total  expenditures, 
275,454  go  for  salaries  and  the  apparatus  of  instruction, 
say  ninety  per  cent  of  the  whole.  Even  deducting  the 
1 8,6 1 8  paid  to  employees  would  leave  the  percentage  at 
almost  eighty-five. 

The  above  statement,  be  it  also  observed,  takes  no 
account  of  lecture-fees.  These  fees,  although  paid  in 
first  instance  to  the  university  treasurer,  are  not  entered 
in  the  general  fund,  but  are  transferred  directly  to  the 
respective  professors.  So  little  are  they  regarded  as  an 


STATISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.      377 

item  of  university  income,  chat  my  informant  has  not  even 
thought  it  necessary  to  give  them.  I  am  constrained, 
therefore,  to  make  a  computation  based  upon  mere  con- 
jecture. Assuming  that  there  are  3,000  students,  in 
round  numbers,  and  that  each  one  pays  only  twenty-five 
thalers  a  year, —  a  low  average,  and  one  that  makes 
ample  allowance  for  such  poor  students  as  obtain  a 
remission  or  abatement  of  their  fees, —  we  get  the  sum 
of  75,000,  which  sum  is  to  be  added  of  course  to  the 
157,863  of  official  salaries.  It  is  an  interesting  feature, 
and  one  that  reveals  in  the  strongest  light  the  radical 
difference  between  Germany  and  America,  that  what  we 
regard  as  the  main  source  of  support  for  our  colleges, 
their  life-blood,  is  not  even  entered  by  the  university  of 
Leipsic  in  the  official  statement  of  its  income. 

Leipsic  is  one  of  the  few  universities  that  have  prop- 
erty of  their  own.  The  others  are  Heidelberg  and 
Greifswald.  I  do  not  know  of  any  besides  these  three. 
Leipsic  is  by  far  the  wealthiest.  The  other  universities 
are  dependent  altogether  upon  state  appropriations. 
This  is  undoubtedly  the  case  with  Gottingen  (formerly 
Hanoverian)  and  the  Prussian  universities. 

With  regard  to  the  salaries  of  the  Leipsic  professors,  I 
take  the  liberty  of  quoting  Professor  Zarncke's  own 
words :  "  The  highest  salary  is  about  3,500  thalers,  but 
some  of  the  professors  are  in  receipt  of  gratuities  (Zu- 
sctiusse)  in  addition.  Thus  the  ordinarius  of  the  law- 
faculty  has  an  addition  of  at  least  1,000,  the  directors  of 
the  hospitals  have  about  600  in  addition,  and  so  on. 
*32 


37&  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

This  does  not  include  lecture-fees,  which,  in  many  cases, 
must  amount  to  2,000  or  3,000.  Accordingly  our  best 
paid  man  can  not  be  in  receipt  of  less  than  7,000.  But 
this,  to  be  sure,  is  a  highly  favored  position  (eine  glan- 
zende  Ausnahmestellung}.  The  minimum  for  an  ordinarius 
is,  at  present,  about  1,000.  Most  of  the  ordinarii  receive 
i, 800  to  2,000.  The  average  income  of  the  ordinarii 
would  be  2,500.  As  to  the  extra-or dinar ii,  no  fixed  rule 
prevails.  A  few  receive  no  salary,  others  receive  only 
500,  others  again  1,000.  One,  if  I  mistake  not,  receives 
1,200." 

These  salaries  will  appear,  at  first  sight,  decidedly 
meagre.  Yet  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  money  is 
only  a  relative  notion.  Whether  a  person  in  receipt  of  a 
fixed  sum  is  well  off  or  poorly  off,  depends  upon  the  pur- 
chasing power  represented  by  that  sum.  I  should  rather 
take  my  chances  as  Ausserordentlicher  of  the  Leipsic 
faculty  with  500  thalers  a  year,  than  as  an  American 
assistant-professor  with  $1,000.  The  Leipsic  man  has 
one  decided  advantage  over  his  American  colleague. 
His  official  duties  are  light,  and  lie  altogether  in  the 
direction  of  his  chosen  studies.  He  is  not  called  upon 
to  give  instruction  to  classes  for  twelve,  fifteen,  or  even 
twenty  hours  a  week,  nor  is  his  time  frittered  away  in 
enforcing  general  discipline.  One  course  of  lectures 
(four  or  five  hours  a  week)  is  his  quantum  of  work. 
Whatever  exceeds  this,  is  a  matter  of  personal  ambition. 
If  he  is  successful  enough  to  establish  two  or  three 
courses,  the  lecture-fees  are  his  private  gain. 


S  TA  TIS  TICS  OF  GERM  A  N  UNI  VERSITIES.      379 

His  time  is  almost  wholly  his  own.  His  salary  enables 
him  to  live.  To  make  this  point  clear,  I  shall  endeavor 
to  show  as  fully  as  possible  the  purchasing  power  of 
money  in  a  town  like  Leipsic.  The  estimate  will  be  of 
interest  to  those  of  my  readers  who  may  wish  to  know 
what  to  expect  in  Germany.  I  passed  two  months  in 
Leipsic  in  the  summer  of  1872.  Being  pressed  for 
time,  I  took  the  first  apartment  that  I  could  find,  without 
stopping  to  advertise  or  to  bargain.  It  consisted  of  a 
study,  with  two  windows  facing  on  the  main  street,  and  a 
sleeping  room  with  one  window.  Both  rooms  were  com- 
modious, perfectly  clean,  and  well  furnished.  The 
furniture  was,  for  Germany,  almost  elegant.  I  paid 
ten  thalers  a  month.  The  same  quarters  could  not  be 
obtained  in  New  York  for  less  than  $10  a  week.  Break- 
fast, consisting  of  two  cups  of  coffee,  bread  and  butter, 
and  eggs,  served  in  my  room,  cost  five  thalers  a  month. 
My  dinner  at  Miiller's  restaurant,  one  of  the  best  in  town, 
cost,  including  a  glass  of  beer,  twelve  thalers.  Supper,  a 
substantial  warm  meal,  averaged  about  ten  thalers.  The 
aggregate  of  my  expenses  for  living,  then,  was  thirty-seven 
thalers  a  month.  I  venture  to  say  that  for  this  trifling 
sum  I  lived  better,  that  is,  more  at  my  ease,  feeling  that  I 
got  more  for  my  money,  than  I  have  ever  succeeded  in 
doing,  under  like  circumstances,  in  America.  As  it  was, 
I  paid  too  much.  I  was  a  stranger,  in  a  hurry,  and 
unable  to  take  the  time  for  devising  ways  of  economy. 
One  located  permanently  in  Leipsic  could  live  fully  as 
well  for  three  fourths  of  the  amount.  Many  a  good  room 


380  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

can  be  had,  by  hunting  after  it,  for  six  thalers  a  month. 
The  incidental  expenses  of  life  in  Germany  are  nothing, 
as  compared  with  those  in  America.  An  excellent  suit 
of  clothes  can  be  purchased  for  twenty-five  or  thirty 
thalers,  a  pair  of  shoes  for  five  or  six  thalers.  Amuse- 
ments are  also  very  cheap.  By  purchasing  a  season 
ticket  for  the  Schutzenhaus,  the  great  concert  garden  of 
the  city,  the  price  of  admission  is  reduced  to  three  cents 
an  evening.  For  this  trifling  sum,  one  has  the  entree  to 
a  large  and  beautifully  illuminated  garden ;  the  music, 
lasting  from  eight  to  eleven  o'clock,  is  furnished  by  two 
large  bands  that  play  alternately  in  different  sections  of 
the  garden.  In  addition  to  the  music,  there  is  a  display 
of  acrobatics.  The  best  reserved  seats  at  the  opera  and 
theatre  cost  only  one  thaler.  But  subscription-seats  can 
be  obtained  at  less  than  half  the  price.*  There  are 
numerous  reading-rooms,  where  one  can  have  access  to 
all  the  periodicals,  magazines  and  reviews,  for  a  mere 
pittance,  not  to  speak  of  the  newspapers  taken  in  the 
cafes. 

During  my  stay  in  Leipsic  I  was  too  much  absorbed  in 
my  private  studies  to  take  very  careful  note  of  the  world 
around  me.  Besides,  it  was  the  long  vacation  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  time.  But  in  1873,  on  my  return 
home  from  Vienna,  I  stopped  for  a  few  days  to  make 
some  purchases.  Having  complete  disposal  of  my  time, 
I  employed  it  in  studying  the  outward  manifestations  of 

*  It  would  be  ungrateful  in  me  to  fail  to  mention  the  delightful  motets  de 
livered  gratuitously  every  Saturday  afternoon  in  the  Church  of  St.  Thomas. 


STATISTICS  OF  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES      381 

intellectual  activity.  At  certain  hours  of  the  day  the 
streets  of  the  inner  city,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
university  building,  were  thronged  with  students  on  their 
way  to  and  from  lecture.  More  particularly  was  this 
noticeable  at  ,one  o'clock,  when  the  midday  pause  comes 
in.  The  arched  ways  and  courts  of  the  quondam 
Dominican  cloister,  with  all  the  avenues  of  approach, 
resembled  a  huge  swarming  ant-heap.  Hundreds,  thou- 
sands of  young  men,  Mappe  in  hand,  were  hastening  away 
to  their  rooms  and  their  dining-places.  Although  there 
was  no  disorder,  none  of  the  turbulence  and  boisterous 
demonstrations  that  distinguish  an  American  class  let 
loose,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  make  one's  way  against 
the  surging  mass  of  humanity.  On  one  occasion  I  amused 
myself,  while  enjoying  an  after-dinner  cup  of  coffee  in  the 
Cafe  Francois,  by  studying  the  motley  composition  of  my 
neighbors.  The  upper  rooms  of  the  Cafe  are  given  up  to 
smokers,  and  at  this  hour  of  the  day  nearly  all  the  guests 
are  students.  To  my  left  sat  a  party  of  Poles  sibilating 
to  their  hearts'  content  over  a  game  of  draughts.  To  my 
right,  a  sedate  party  of  Greeks,  men  of  thirty  or  thirty- 
five,  puffing  cigarettes  and  conversing  in  an  undertone. 
Directly  in  front,  Germans  boisterous  over  "  Scat."  In 
the  adjoining  billiard-room,  three  or  four  of  my  country- 
men still  more  boisterous  over  pool,  "  damning 
scratches  "  and  taking  for  granted,  with  the  license  that 
prevails  among  Americans  on  the  Continent,  that  no  one 
could  understand  them.  The  whole  world  seemed  to  be 
represented  in  that  post-prandial  reunion  in  the  smoking- 


382  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

room  of  the  Cafe  Frangais.  Coming  fresh  from  the 
scenes  of  the  Vienna  Exhibition,  I  thought  to  myself  that 
Leipsic  too  was  a  World's  Fair,  a  standing  parliament  of 
the  nations.  The  quiet  Saxon  town  had  made  the  world 
its  tributary.  Among  its  students  were  men  who  had 
played  the  role  of  professor  at  home,  men  well  on  in  the 
thirties  and  even  forties,  who  had  saved  up  a  few  hundreds 
and  had  come  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth,  had 
crossed  mountains  and  continents  and  oceans,  in  quest 
of  the  fountain  of  knowledge. 

The  reader  has  before  him  the  materials  with  which  to 
construct  an  image  of  the  great  university  in  its  magni- 
tude and  its  variety.  Let  him  add  thereto  the  city  gym- 
nasiums, with  their  numerous  staff  of  highly  educated 
teachers,  the  celebrated  Conservatory  of  Music,  the  many 
scientific  and  literary  institutions,  the  bureaus  of  the 
countless  perodicals  that  have  their  headquarters  here, 
the  great  publishing  houses  of  Brockhaus,  Teubner, 
Tauchnitz  and  others  scarcely  less  renowned,  each  one  of 
which  has  its  personnel  of  critical  proof-readers,  editors,  and 
literary  advisers,  and  finally  the  many  authors  themselves 
residing  here  permanently.  The  aggregation  of  talent 
and  culture  is  startling.  The  city  throbs  with  the  pulsa- 
tions of  intense  and  sustained  intellectual  effort.  Leip- 
sic is  the  head-centre  for  the  culture  of  the  most  pro- 
ductive nation  of  the  present  day.  Only  London,  Paris 
and  Berlin,  I  am  persuaded,  surpass  it  in  the  number  of 
men  of  learning,  while  in  proportion  to  its  population  — 
barely  100,000  —  it  is  without  a  peer. 


PRACTICAL  HINTS.  383 

IX. 
Practical  Hints. 

It  was  part  of  my  original  purpose  to  sketch  the  promi- 
nent features  of  the  six  or  eight  leading  universities  of 
Germany,  and  to  enumerate  the  most  celebrated  profes- 
sors in  each  department.  But  aside  from  the  difficulty, 
not  to  say  the  impossibility  of  doing  justice  to  the  claims 
of  all  and  each,  I  was  deterred  by  the  further  considera- 
tion, that  such  a  comparison,  with  all  the  care  that  might 
be  put  upon  it,  would  have  no  permanent  value.  The 
universities  are  shifting  in  their  nature.  One  rises,  the 
other  falls  ;  a  few  professors  die  or  remove,  new  ones 
come  in  their  place,  and  the  character  of  the  university  is 
modified.  Within  my  own  experience  I  can  recall  a  strik- 
ing instance  of  this  shifting.  Ten  years  ago,  Gottingen 
stood  slightly  in  the  background,  while  Heidelberg  was, 
if  not  the  largest,  certainly  the  most  conspicuous  of  all  the 
universities.  But  Vangerow  and  Mittermaier  have  since 
died,  and  the  number  of  Heidelberg  students  has  fallen 
to  five  hundred,  while  Gottingen,  stimulated  by  the 
accession  of  new  men,  has  raised  its  numbers  to  a  thou- 
sand. The  two  universities  have  changed  positions.  The 
resuscitation  of  the  university  of  Strassburg  has  drawn  off 
many  of  the  best  scholars  from  the  older  seats^of  learn- 
ing. The  smaller  towns,  in  particular,  such  as  Marburg, 
Wurzburg,  Tubingen,  have  suffered  severely.  Professors 
die  and  remove  in  America  also,  but  their  coming  and  going 


384  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

does  not  affect  so  directly  the  general  status  of  the  col- 
lege. The  undergraduate  is  sent  to  one  college  rather 
than  to  another,  because  the  outline  of  study  meets  the 
views  of  his  parents,  or  because  they  wish  him  to  be 
reared  under  the  influence  of  the  religious  denomination 
controlling  that  college,  or  because  his  family  is  tradi- 
tionally identified  with  it.  Each  college  in  America  draws 
its  supply  of  teachers  and  students  from  its  own  especial 
sources,  represents  certain  fixed  interests,  and  moves 
therefore  in  an  orbit  of  its  own.  I  doubt  whether  one 
undergraduate  in  a  hundred  is  determined  in  his  selection 
of  an  alma  mater  by  the  circumstance  that  a  certain  pro- 
fessor or  certain  professors  are  enrolled  in  its  faculty. 
Indeed,  so  long  as  the  professor  himself  is  hindered  from 
displaying  his  talents  to  their  full  extent,  is  limited  to  a 
sTiare  in  the  prescribed  curriculum,  the  student  is  forced 
to  disregard  individual  merits  and  to  estimate  the  college 
only  in  its  totality.  In  Germany,  on  the  other  hand, 
where  the  organization  is  uniform  and  all  the  universities 
rest  on  the  same  basis  and  are  administered  in  accordance 
with  the  same  principle,  the  character  of  each  one  at  a 
given  epoch  is  determined  solely  by  the  professors  com- 
posing the  faculty.  If  they  are  men  of  progress,  the  uni- 
versity itself  will  flourish;  but  if  they  represent  rather 
the  ideas  and  methods  that  are  passing  away,  the  univer- 
sity will  be  on  the  wane. 

The  reader  will  understand,  then,  that  I  do  not  attempt 
to  furnish  the  data  by  which  he  can  decide  for  himself 
which  one  of  the  twenty  universities  may  be  best  suited  to 


PRACTICAL  HINTS.  385 

his  needs.  On  this,  as  on  every  other  point,  the  advice 
and  opinion  of  friends  who  have  lived  in  Germany,  and 
are  in  a  position  to  judge  men  and  institutions  by  the 
light  of  their  own  personal  experience,  will  be  far  more 
to  the  purpose  than  any  mere  remarks  from  me.  All  that 
I  can  do  is  to  throw  out  a  few  practical  suggestions  of  a 
general  nature. 

The  first  is  that  every  one  who  thinks  of  entering  upon 
German  university  life  should  decide  beforehand  upon 
his  specialty.  The  object  of  the  university  is  not  to 
afford  general  culture,  but  special  training.  Everything 
is  made  subservient  to  minuteness  and  thoroughness  of 
research.  Hence  the  American  who  should  matriculate 
at  Leipsic  in  the  expectation  of  finding  merely  a  Yale  or 
a  Harvard  on  a  more  generous  scale,  would  find  himself 
grievously  disappointed.  He  may  study  any  one  subject 
he  chooses,  but  he  must  study  it  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
others. 

To  make  a  proper  selection,  one  must  have  finished 
his  preliminary  training,  i.  e.,  must  have  taken  his  Ameri- 
can degree  of  B.  A.  or  B.  S.  The  American  college  goes 
little  beyond  the  gymnasium,  and,  moreover,  is  not  so 
thorough  in  its  method.  The  American  graduate  is 
somewhat  older  and  considerably  more  worldly-wise  than 
the  newly  matriculated  Fuchs,  but  I  take  the  liberty  of 
doubting  whether  he  is  equal  in  solid  attainments,  or  in 
capacity  for  work.  His  education  is  marred  by  many 
flaws,  it  is  not  sufficiently  symmetrical.  Composition, 

oratory,   and   miscellanea  have  been   cultivated    at   the 
33 


386  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

expense  of  more  difficult  acquisitions.  One  who  enters 
the  university  without  the  preparation  afforded  either  by 
the  gymnasium  or  the  college,  commits  the  grave  blunder 
of  building  on  too  narrow  a  foundation.  He  runs  the 
risk  of  making  his  studies  hasty  and  superficial.  The 
German  is  not  permitted  to  make  such  a  mistake ;  he  is 
kept  back,  even  against  his  will,  until  he  has  "  ripened." 
The  American  is  not  under  the  same  restraint,  there  is 
nothing  to  hinder  him  from  entering  a  German  university 
at  the  age  of  seventeen  or  eighteen,  quite  unprepared. 
Yet  not  many  do  so.  The  danger  most  to  be  appre- 
hended comes  in  the  shape  of  the  temptation  to  expedite 
matters  by  breaking  off  one's  college  course  in  the  Junior 
or  even  in  the  Sophomore  year.  Not  a  few  of  the  Ameri- 
cans now  studying  in  the  universities  of  Germany  are 
young  men  whose  impatience  has  thus  outrun  their 
discernment.  The  mistake  is  fraught  with  serious  con- 
sequences. Whoever  commits  it  is  neither  one  thing  nor 
the  other ;  he  has  not  secured  the  benefit  of  gymnasial 
training,  nor  has  he  made  his  mark,  so  to  speak,  at  home. 
If  my  words  are  to  have  any  weight,  I  feel  it  to  be  my 
duty  to  impress  upon  the  young  reader  the  importance 
of  completing  his  college  studies  before  embarking  upon 
the  ocean  of  university  life.  To  say  this,  one  does  not 
need  to  be  blindly  enamored  of  the  American  college 
system.  That  system  has  many  and  grievous  faults.  Yet 
taken  as  it  is,  for.  better  and  for  worse,  it  is  our  system, 
the  die  that  stamps  its  mark  upon  our  culture.  The  man 
who  has  not  received  that  impress  must  resign  himself  to 


PRACTICAL  HINTS.  387 

passing  at  a  discount.  College  training,  imperfect  as  it 
undoubtedly  is  from  the  point  of  view  of  pure  theory,  has 
nevertheless  practical  advantages  that  must  not  be  disre- 
garded. It  prepares  young  men  for  the  sudden  crises,  the 
contingencies  and  irregularities  of  American  life.  It  does 
not  afford,  I  regret  to  say,  the  highest  instruction  in  any 
one  department  of  knowledge.  He  who  seeks  after  such 
instruction  must  go  abroad  for  it.  Yet  the  college  is  the 
place  where  one  can  best  fit  himself  for  playing  his  part 
as  an  American,  the  place  where  one  can  form  useful 
connections  and  enroll  himself  in  the  brotherhood  of 
American  thinkers  and  men  of  action. 

These  remarks  concerning  the  colleges  will  apply  with 
equal  force  to  the  schools  of  .science  and  of  medicine. 
After  consulting  with  friends,  and  joining  their  opinions 
to  the  results  of  my  own  observation,  I  feel  warranted  in 
asserting  that  the  surest  way  of  reaping  the  full  benefit  of 
the  advantages  afforded  in  Europe  is  to  prepare  for  them 
by  taking  a  full  course  of  study  at  home.  Study  abroad 
is  like  travel  abroad ;  one  brings  back  only  what  one  took 
away  with  him.  That  is  to  say,  one  must  prepare  him- 
self for  the  mission,  by  acquiring  an  ample  stock  of  ideas 
and  principles,  and  a  practical  familiarity  with  methods 
and  processes.  Otherwise,  the  phases  of  foreign  life  and 
thought  slip  from  the  mind  like  the  evanescent  kaleido- 
scopic impressions  made  by  a  moving  panorama. 
Although  entertained  for  the  while,  one  is  left  in  reality 
no  wiser  than  before. 

We  can  even  go  farther,  and  hold  that  the  American 


388  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

student  should  not  only  have  completed  his  general  edu- 
cation, but  that  he  should  have  mastered  the  rudiments 
of  his  specialty,  before  matriculating  in  a  German  uni- 
versity. It  is  the  first  step,  as  we  all  know,  that  costs. 
The  German  passes  direct  from  the  gymnasium  to  the  uni- 
versity. But  then  he  is  at  home,  he  has  parents  and 
friends  near  at  hand,  who  can  advise  him  from  time  to 
time.  The  American  is  thrown  more  upon  his  own  re- 
sources. He  has  not  only  to  learn  the  language,  but  he 
has  to  familiarize  himself  with  novel  ways  of  living.  How- 
ever high-spirited  and  self-confident,  he  will  be  overcome 
at  times  by  a  feeling  of  helplessness,  the  consciousness  of 
having  to  learn  everything  at  once.  The  struggle  is  then 
too  intense,  too  wearing.  It  will  be  materially  lightened, 
if  the  student  has  already  taken  a  start,  if,  while  working 
amid  strange  surroundings  and  against  the  odds  of  foreign 
nomenclature,  he  is  still  working  according  to  methods 
with  which  he  is  to  some  extent  familiar.  Let  us  take 
the  study  of  chemistry  for  the  purposes  of  illustration. 
To  attempt  to  learn  at  once  German  and  chemistry 
from  the  very  beginning  is  too  difficult.  It  can  be  done ; 
indeed,  it  has  been  done  repeatedly.  Yet  success  is 
bought  at  too  great  a  cost.  Six  months'  practice  in  an 
American  laboratory  would  reduce  the  labor  by  at  least 
one  half. 

Furthermore,  there  is  a  practical  consideration  which 
has  been  too  often  overlooked.     It  is  this.  I  The  Ameri- 
can does  not  live  to  study;  he  rather  studies  to  live.j 
Were   life  merely  a  pleasant   sojourn   in   the   secluded 


PRACTICAL  HINTS.  389 

haunts  of  literature  and  science,  one  could  afford  to  take 
up  his  abode  early  in  a  German  university  and  linger 
there  year  after  year  in  the  delightful  pursuit  of  abstract 
knowledge.  But  to  the  American  mind,  study  presents 
itself  as  the  means  to  an  end,  and  that  end  is  position, 
salary,  whatever  we  may  choose  to  call  it.  Much  that  is 
taught  in  a  German  university  is  proper  enough  in  itself, 
and  conducive  to  the  highest  interests  of  culture,  but  is 
not  available,  not  yet  at  least,  in  America.  One  who 
wishes  to  prosper  on  his  return  home,  should  have  the 
faculty  of  selecting,  should  be  able  to  seize  upon  the 
essential,  the  practical,  and  disregard  the  unessential. 
But  this  ability  presupposes  experience,  a  knowledge  of 
what  the  home-public  will  receive  with  favor.  Hence  it 
is  that  the  men  who  have  first  initiated  themselves  into 
their  vocation  at  home,  serving  their  time  as  tutors  or 
assistants,  maturing,  growing  with  the  needs  of  the  com- 
munity whom  they  serve,  will  succeed  in  turning  even 
the  briefest  course  in  a  German  university  to  such  good 
account,  while  others,  who  hastened  abroad  and  pro- 
longed their  stay,  return  confused  in  their  notions  and 
blundering  in  their  aims. 

The  parents  who  place  their  children  at  school  in  Ger- 
many, in  the  expectation  of  giving  them  the  benefits  of  a 
"  thorough  continental  education,"  commit  a  grave  error. 
It  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  get  an  American  boy  into  a 
really  good  German  school.  Our  boys  stand  in  marked 
disfavor  with  the  school-authorities.  Teachers  and 
directors  have  learned  by  painful  experience  that  young 
*33 


3QO  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

Americans  are  prone  to  be  idle  and  mutinous,  exerting 
an  evil  influence  over  their  associates.  Nothing  short  of 
the  strongest  testimonials,  backed  by  explicit  guarantees 
from  resident  citizens,  will  open  the  doors  of  the  gym- 
nasium. The  private  schools  that  make  a  practice^  of 
admitting  Americans  and  English  are,  to  say  the  least, 
questionable  in  their  character  and  in  the  quality  of  their 
instruction.  They  are  unquestionably  inferior  to  the  best 
of  our  own  schools.  Besides,  conceding  even  that  the 
American  boy  is  placed  at  the  gymnasium  in  his  fifteenth 
or  sixteenth  year,  pursues  successfully  the  studies  of 
Secunda  and  Prima,  and  enters  the  university,  in  what 
respect  is  he  better  off  than  his  countryman  who  has  just 
arrived  from  over  the  water?  He  is  more  thoroughly 
trained  in  Latin  and  Greek,  in  mathematics,  and  in  his- 
tory, and  he  speaks  German  with  the  fluency  and  pre- 
cision of  a  native.  A  great  gain,  no  doubt,  but  obtained 
at  a  terrible  price.  The  youth  is  completely  denational- 
ized !  He  is  no  longer  an  American,  he  has  no  sympathy 
with  American  life  and  character,  he  fails  to  appreciate 
American  modes  of  thought  and  sentiment.  Unless  he 
has  had  the  good  fortune  to  reside  with  his  own  family, 
the  probability  is  that  his  proficiency  in  German  has  cost 
him  the  total,  in  any  case  the  partial  loss  of  his  mother- 
tongue.  He  is  unable  to  write  a  letter  or  a  composition 
in  English,  without  committing  the  most  absurd  blunders 
in  style,  in  grammar,  and  in  orthography.  Let  him  pass 
three  years  additional  at  the  university.  He  will  return 
to  his  native  country,  a  young  man  of  twenty-three, 


PRACTICAL  HINTS.  391 

highly  educated,  no  doubt,  but  helpless,  unpractical, 
ignorant  of  the  ways  of  his  countrymen.  He  will  be 
almost  as  much  a  foreigner  as  any  one  of  the  hundred 
immigrants  landed  to-day  at  Castle  Garden. 

Of  all  cruel  delusions  that  have  played  havoc  with 
education,  this  one  of  "  the  languages  "  has  been  the  most 
baneful.  Parents  do  not  seem  to  perceive  that  their  first 
duty  to  their  children  is  to  make  them  Americans.  What 
is  in  itself  only  a  means,  they  look  upon  as  an  end.  It 
is  perfectly  true  that  a  knowledge  of  French  and  Ger- 
man is  not  only  useful,  but  is  necessary  in  all  or  nearly 
all  the  professions.  The  man  who  has  not  command  over 
the  resources  of  these  two  languages  labors  under  great 
disadvantage.  Yet  it  is  advisable  that  we  should  meet 
and  answer  fairly  the  question  :  What  is  meant  by  know- 
ing a  language  ?  If  by  knowing  a  language  is  meant 
simply  the  ability  to  maintain  a  conversation  or  write  a 
letter,  let  us  be  candid  and  admit  that  the  accomplish- 
ment is  a  mere  superficial  varnish,  a  something  that  is 
not  worth  the  acquisition.  The  small-talk  of  the  ordi- 
nary letter  and  the  drawing-room  is  no  better  and  no 
worse  in  one  language  than  in  another.  Where  is  the 
gain  in  keeping  a  boy  or  a  girl  for  years  in  a  Pension,  far 
away  from  the  refining  influences  of  home,  merely 
that  he  or  she  may  be  able  to  rattle  off  bilingual  plati- 
tudes ?  How  many  of  the  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
young  men  and  women  who  have  been  reared  at  great 
expense  in  France  and  Germany,  and  who  pride  them- 
selves on  their  glibness  of  conversation,  have  made  or  are 


392  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

likely  to  make  their  mark  as  authors  and  thinkers  ?  If 
French  is  worth  learning  at  all, —  and  this  applies  to 
German  and  every  other  language, —  it  is  worth  learning, 
not  as  a  "  beggarly  account  of  empty  boxes  "  with  pretty 
gilt  labels,  but  as  a  vast  storehouse  of  thought  and  cul- 
ture. To  know  French  in  the  sense  of  being  able  to  say, 
Good  Morning,  How  D'ye  Do,  and  to  order  one's  dinner 
and  berate  the  waiter,  is  a  superfluous  accomplishment. 
But  French  as  the  vehicle  used  by  Racine,  Pascal, 
Moliere,  by  the  great  writers  of  France,  to  convey  their 
thoughts  and  ideas,  is  an  object  worth  striving  after. 
The  man  or  the  woman  who  is  able  to  read  French  works 
with  an  understanding  of  their  relative  merits,  with  a  clear 
insight  into  their  development  and  into  the  special  phase 
of  national  life  that  each  one  represents,  has  just  reason 
to  be  proud.  French  language  is  one  thing,  French 
literature  is  another.  The  latter  is  a  final  object  of 
study,  the  former  is  not.  But  to  know  French  literature 
as  the  body  of  French  thought,  one  must  look  upon  the 
language  as  preliminary,  the  mere  avenue  of  approach. 
And  to  become  a  good  scholar  in  French  literature,  one 
must  be  in  the  first  place  a  good  scholar  in  English. 
One  must  be  reared  at  home,  must  receive  the  best  train- 
ing that  his  own  country  can  afford,  and  must  place  him- 
self in  accord  with  whatever  is  distinctively  American 
and  English.  In  no  other  way  can  one  compare  the 
literature  in  French  with  the  literature  in  English,  and 
do  justice  to  each.  The  two  Americans  whose  names 
are  most  strongly  associated  with  foreign  culture  are 


PRACTICAL  HINTS.  393 

Longfellow  and  Lowell.  They  have  won  for  themselves 
imperishable  fame  as  genial  mediators  between  the  Old 
World  and  the  New.  Yet  neither  Longfellow  nor  Lowell, 
I  am  confident,  looks  upon  his  knowledge  of  French,  or 
German,  or  Italian  as  anything  more  than  the  key  with 
which  to  unlock  the  treasure-houses  of  European  thought. 
They  were  both  sound  English  scholars,  graduates  of 
American  colleges,  before  they  embarked  upon  their 
foreign  tours  of  exploration.  They  went  abroad  know- 
ing what  to  look  for,  prepared  to  accept  or  reject,  to 
assimilate,  and  to  reproduce. 

It  is  time  that  protest  should  be  raised  against  this 
pernicious  practice  of  placing  our  boys  and  girls  at 
European  schools.  These  schools  are  excellent,  better 
indeed  than  our  own,  in  many  respects.  But  they  are 
not  planned  for  Americans,  and  they  can  never  fit  their 
pupils  for  the  peculiar  duties  and  responsibilities  of 
American  life.  The  higher  education  of  the  German 
universities  is  the  best  in  the  world.  Yet  Americans 
should  beware  of  entering  upon  it  before  they  are  fully 
ripe,  before  they  know  what  to  take  and  what  to  leave. 

In  speaking  of  the  universities  of  Leipsic  and  Berlin,  I 
have  already  mentioned  the  rates  of  the  chief  ifems  of 
expenditure.  It  will  be  needful  to  add  in  this  place, 
therefore,  only  a  brief  comparison  of  Leipsic  with  the 
smaller  university  towns.  At  Marburg,  my  room  cost 
exactly  one  half  the  Leipsic  price,  but  was  much  inferior 
in  every  respect.  Indeed,  by  reason  of  the  wretched 
style  of  building  that  has  prevailed  at  Marburg,  it  is 


394  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

difficult  to  obtain  a  good  room  at  any  price.  I  may  say, 
in  general,  that  a  good  room  may  be  had  at  Tubingen, 
Halle,  Wiirzburg,  Jena,  and  the  other  towns,  except  Bonn 
and  Heidelberg,  for  six  or  seven  thalers  a  month.  Table 
d'hote  will  be  somewhat  less  than  at  Leipsic,  the  other 
meals  will  differ  but  slightly.  Whoever  has  at  his  com- 
mand $500  per  annum,  in  gold,  will  be  able  to  live  in 
comfort,  to  have  good  rooms  and  excellent  fare,  to  add 
twenty  or  thirty  volumes  each  semester  to  his  library,  and 
to  travel  for  a  fortnight  each  vacation.  There  is  many 
a  German  student  who  would  be  thankful  to  receive  as 
much  as  $300  per  annum.  The  only  universities  that  can 
be  called  expensive  are  Berlin  and  Vienna.  For  these 
two  places,  $800  to  $1,000  will  scarcely  be  too  much. 

What  particular  subject  shall  be  studied,  is  of  course  a 
question  that  must  be  settled  by  each  one  for  himself, 
according  to  his  predilection  and  his  opportunities.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  majority  of  the  Americans  who  study 
in  Germany  pursue  chemistry  and  medicine.  Next  in 
point  of  numbers  are  the  students  of  the  classics.  After 
them  come  the  theologians.  Very  few  take  up  the  subject 
of  Roman  jurisprudence.  So  long  as  the  law  is  looked 
upon  in  America  as  a  bread-and-butter  study,  I  see  no 
reason  to  expect  a  change  in  this  respect.  To  use  the 
current  phrase,  "  it  will  not  pay  "  to  spend  two  or  three 
years  over  the  Institutes  and  the  Pandects.  Yet  I  can- 
not refrain  from  expressing  my  regret  that  so  few  of  our 
young  lawyers  should  think  it  worth  the  while  to  make  at 
least  the  effort  to  emulate  the  great  Chancellor  Kent,  and 


PRACTICAL  HINTS.  395 

to  develop  themselves  not  merely  into  clever  practitioners 
but  into  accomplished  jurists.  A  knowledge  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Roman  Law  is  the  foundation  of  study  in 
international  jurisprudence,  and  is  also  indispensable  to 
a  full  understanding  of  the  movements  recorded  in  Conti- 
nental history.  If  by  history  we  mean  in  sincerity  the 
formation  of  national  character  and  habits,  and  not 
merely  the  chronicle  of  battles  and  court  intrigues,  we 
cannot  escape  the  conclusion  that  to  study  the  history  of 
a  nation  one  must  examine  into  its  system  of  laws.  For 
the  laws  of  a  nation  are  the  permanent  expression  of  the 
nation's  habits,  its  views  concerning  property,  the  mar- 
riage relation,  the  rights  and  duties  of  parents  and 
children,  the  connection  between  church  and  state.  The 
political  and  social  constitutions  of  France,  Germany, 
Italy,  and  Spain,  rest,  to  a  large  extent,  upon  the  system 
of  rules  and  maxims  bequeathed  to  them  or  imposed 
upon  them  by  the  Romans  and  confirmed  by  the  mediae- 
val church.  The  first  step,  then,  toward  the  knowledge 
of  continental  history  is  the  study  of  the  general  princi- 
ples embodied  in  the  corpus  jur is.  In  support  of  this 
position,  I  refer  to  the  practice  of  the  German  universi- 
ties, that  place  the  Institutes  and  History  of  Roman  Law 
among  the  requirements  for  the  degree  in  history. 

Although  loth  to  say  aught  that  may  have  the  appear- 
ance of  an  attempt  to  influence  others  in  the  selection 
of  their  vocations,  I  make  one,  and  only  one  suggestion. 
Should  any  one  of  my  readers  be  desirous  of  testing  for 
himself  the  boasted  superiority  of  the  German  university 


396  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

system,  and  should  he  be  wholly  undecided  in  his  choice 
of  a  subject,  why  may  he  not  take  up  history,  and  more 
especially  the  history  of  Germany  ?  Not  only  is  the  field 
inviting  in  itself,  but  it  is  one  in  which  he  need  fear  no 
rivals.  The  balance  of  power  in  Europe  has  been  shifted 
over  night,  the  veterans  of  Austria  and  France  have  gone 
down  before  the  charge  of  the  Prussian  citizen-soldier, 
the  first  have  become  last,  and  the  last  first,  but  we  have 
still  to  learn  how  this  wonderful  change  has  been  effected. 
We  count  our  German  citizens,  adopted  and  native,  by 
the  million,  yet  no  one  has  told  us  in  our^own  language 
what  the  change  means,  how  it  came  to  pass,  what  were 
its  conditions  and  its  remote  origin,  what  it  portends  in 
the  history  of  European  civilization.  We  are  left  to  the 
dreary  platitudes  of  the  English  press  and  the  incoherent 
Jeremiads  of  the  French.  Will  not  some  one  of  our 
future  scholars  write  for  us  the  history  of  Germany, 
based  upon  German  authorities  but  conceived  from  the 
American  point  of  view  ?  The  harvest  is  there,  awaiting 
the  harvester.  Let  him  show  how  the  German  race,  fore- 
most in  the  Middle  Ages,  misdirected  by  the  inordinate 
ambition  of  the  Hohenstaufen  and  the  Habsburgs,  be- 
wildered by  the  Reformation,  crushed  by  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  crazed  by  the  Revolution,  has  nevertheless, 
by  virtue  of  its  marvelous  vitality,  regenerated  itself,  re- 
constituted itself  from  crown  to  sole,  regained  its  former 
ascendency  through  the  one  great  revival  on  record.  The 
labor,  I  am  aware,  is  immense,  but  the  reward  will  be 


PRACTICAL  HINTS.  397 

commensurate.     The  initiatory  discipline  can  be  acquired 
only  at  a  German  university. 

I  conclude  with  a  practical  hint.  Most  Americans 
who  visit  Germany  for  the  purpose  of  study  leave  home 
at  the  close  of  the  so  called  commencement  season. 
But  many  of  them  travel  during  the  summer  months, 
instead  of  proceeding  direct  to  Germany  and  locating 
themselves  permanently.  This  is  a  mistake.  As  a  student, 
one  has  abundant  opportunities  for  travel  during  the 
regular  vacations.  One's  first  aim  should  be  to  acquire 
some  familiarity  with  the  language.  By  leaving  at  the 
end  of  June,  one  can  reach  almost  any  city  or  town  in 
Germany  by  the  middle  of  July.  From  this  date  to  the 
middle  of  October,  the  commencement  of  the  wintei 
semester,  is  a  period  of  three  months,  which  can  be 
devoted  exclusively  to  the  study  of  the  language.  If 
this  time  is  put  to  account,  there  will  be  very  little  diffi- 
culty in  attending  lectures  in  October.  The  Christmas 
vacation  will  afford  ample  time  for  visiting  Berlin  and 
Dresden,  the  spring  vacation  can  be  taken  for  the  Rhine, 
and  the  succeeding  summer  for  South  Germany  and  the 
Alps.  There  can  scarcely  be  a  better  adjustment  of 
study  and  travel  for  the  first  year.  One  loses  no  time  in 
going  to  work,  and  has  the  additional  gain  of  traveling 
when  he  is  already  familiar  with  the  language  of  the 
country,  the  coins,  and  also  the  ways  of  living.  It  will 
not  be  necessary,  perhaps  not  advisable,  to  spend  the 
three  months  above  mentioned  in  a  university  town 
Any  place  where  the  language  is  correct  and  living 
34 


398  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

economical  will  answer.  Hanover,  in  itself  considered, 
would  be  perhaps  the  best  place.  But  it  is  somewhat 
expensive,  and  is  overrun  with  English  and  American 
families.  Brunswick  is  a  handsome  city  and  offers  many 
inducements.  Next  to  it  in  desirability  come  Gotha, 
Weimar,  and  the  other  towns  of  Thuringia.  From  Leip- 
sic  eastward,  and  Cassel  southward,  the  German  loses  in 
purity  and  elegance.  But  wherever  one  may  go,  one 
point  should  never  be  overlooked,  namely,  to  secure  good 
letters  of  introduction  from  Americans  and  Germans  to 
their  personal  friends  in  Germany.  Mere  general  letters 
will  not  be  of  much  avail.  The  letters  should  emanate 
from  men  of  some  distinction  in  America,  and  should  be 
addressed  to  their  personal  acquaintances  abroad.  One 
such  letter  may  secure  the  bearer  a  kind  reception  and  a 
home  at  the  start,  and  will  certainly  save  him  weeks  of 
vexatious  search  after  lodgings  and  the  other  incidentals 
of  life.  Even  if  the  addressee  can  do  nothing  in  the 
way  of  direct  assistance,  he  can  always  advise,  and  to  a 
foreigner,  young  and  inexperienced,  the  smallest  grain  of 
advice  is  worth  many  a  pound  of  self-bought  wisdom.  J 


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